Steve's Party
by sym64
Summary: Steve's friends plan a big surprise party for Steve's birthday but circumstances will have it that it goes not as planned at all. Danny, Catherine, Chin and Kono need to give their very best in order to get Steve to his own party. / This story was written without the help of my two great beta readers, so be aware of grammar mistakes.
1. Chapter 1

Title:** Steve's Party**

Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure everyone knows that they're not mine.

Rating: T

Summary: Steve's friends plan a big surprise party for Steve's birthday but circumstances will have it that it goes not as planned at all.

This story takes place after 'SAR' and 'Recovery' but it can stand alone. Timeframe is a few weeks after 'Recovery' – Steve's back to full duty for a few weeks.

_**Thanks: Thank you Kristi for reading this one for me.**_

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><p><strong>Chapter 01 – Busted plans<strong>

"Danny I think this is a really bad idea."

"Kono what are you talking about," Danny is looking up from his paperwork to see his team-mate coming into his office kind of distressed.

"The whole thing with Steve."

"You mean his surprise party? I think it's an excellent idea, that guy spent his last fifteen birthdays on duty in some form or the other and I know that he never had a birthday party since he was fourteen or something like that. Kono don't look so doubtful he will love to see some of his old friends again, they're all more than eager to come," Danny is trying to keep his voice down, he doesn't want his friend to accidentally hear anything about their plans that are in motion for a few weeks now.

"No that's not what I mean Danny. The way we're going about it is totally wrong and quite frankly a little mean. I mean look at him, he looks really sad. He asked all of us over the course of the last week if we want to 'hang out' with him on Friday and all of us came up with an excuse why we can't. He never said anything about his birthday, but I'm sure he is a bit disappointed that none of us has time for him. And a few minutes ago Cath called him as planned to tell him the story that her department on the base will be on lock-down for a drill that was scheduled in the last minute."

"I know this is not exactly going as planned, it just kind of developed into this. I only wanted him not to make any plans, so that he will be here on Friday, I didn't think it would upset him this much. But trust me he will be one happy guy tomorrow. Until then we just need to occupy him, maybe with a nice shootout or something."

"Yeah well he does look like as if he likes to shoot something or preferable someone," they are both looking over to their boss who sits at his desk, head resting on the back of his chair and seemingly spaced out.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve is aware that he is being watched by Danny and Kono, he would normally wonder why they are talking about him, but at the moment he couldn't care less. Cath just called and told him that she won't be home for the weekend. _Well so much for a birthday finally with friends and family._ He should be used to it by now to spend his birthday without a party, did that the last twenty years. But he was hoping that at least some of his ohana would find the time to spend the evening with him. He can understand all their reasons, Chin and Kono are at the 40th anniversary of some of their uncles or was it a cousin, whatever. Danny has an important meeting with Rachel and the lawyer about the new visitation rights for Grace and afterwards some play at the school, but at least he wanted to come by later to his house. And now Cath canceled on him as well, so much for a getaway he had planned for a few weeks now. He already called and canceled his reservations on the Big Island for their Saturday and Sunday alone time. He had it all planned, he booked the helicopter, the hotel and was going to ask her the big question. _No not that question. This is really getting annoying, you need to tell JoJo about your discussions with yourself._ When he realizes that he is still talking to himself he shakes his head and looks down to his phone.

His decision made he picks it up and dials the by now familiar number.

"Lieutenant Stein."

"Lieutenant Cmdr. McGarrett."

"Sir what can I do for you?"

"Well Lieutenant I'm scheduled to attend my monthly drill next weekend and I was wondering if I could reschedule to this week. I know it's very short notice and if it's not possible I completely understand."

"You're in luck Commander, I had to reschedule this weekend almost completely, three guys fell ill to food poisoning and I'm trying to fill up their posts. Sir they are going to start their parachute drill at seventeen hundred today. Will you be able to make that, if so I would log you in."

"Seventeen hundred? Yeah I can make that. It is until Sunday?"

"Yes Sir, the drill is not on base but from the Enterprise Sir. You will be flown out there and make a few night jumps and on Friday you will have a HALO jump and some kind of training mission. That's all I know about it."

"That's great, thank you Lieutenant."

"Yes Sir, no problem."

Steve's mood just improved immensely, his next phone call is to reschedule his 'Big Island' trip to next week. After a few minutes he has the chopper secured for next Saturday and the suite was also available, only thing now is to get his girlfriend to get the next weekend off. So his next phone call is to the admiral, he's sure that he will help him with his quest.

"Davies."

"Admiral, Sir, Steve McGarrett here."

"Steve, good to hear from you, how are you?"

"Fine Sir thank you."

"How can I help you son?"

"Well I want to take Cath to 'The Big Island' next weekend and I just wanted to ask if there is another drill planned. You see I had it planned for this weekend but she was called up for the drill, so I was wondering if she will be off next weekend," Steve knows that he is kind of babbling but as soon as he had the Admiral on the phone he thought what a stupid idea it was to call him in the first place.

There is silence on the other end and Steve is wondering if he just crossed a line or something when he hears the voice of the Admiral again, "Steve I'm sure that she will have the next weekend off, if anything should come up I will make sure that you can take your trip regardless."

Admiral Davies sounds kind of strange, but Steve attributes that to his strange question, he couldn't have known that Admiral Davies is of course in on the surprise party. And was just wondering who is surprising who. He couldn't keep his curiosity at bay, "Steve anything planned for the weekend now that your plans got busted?"

"Yes Sir I'm actually going to attend training in two hours. Sir sorry to cut this short, but I really need to go if I want to make my flight. Thank you Sir."

Steve makes a last call to the Governor to tell her that he won't be in tomorrow while the Admiral looks at his phone in wonder and breaks out into a laugh. _Well so much for surprising a SEAL, guess the others will get their surprise when their guest of honor will not show up._

Steve is for a moment debating what to tell his team, he is not allowed to tell them what kind of drill he's participating in, maybe it would be best if he doesn't tell them anything at all, just that he won't be in tomorrow. They will all be busy tomorrow anyway so they won't miss him. _Danny wanted to come over later on Friday, well that can be canceled, he even doesn't know how late he will be. STOP talking to yourself._ Steve grabs his stuff and is on his way out to Danny's office where his THREE team-mates are huddled together. If Steve would have been on top of his game, he would have found their behavior more than suspicious, but he is preoccupied with thinking about his training. He is really looking forward to it, and to think about the thrill of a night jump makes him grin.

"What has you grinning like an idiot," Danny is not one to hold back what's on his mind.

"Huh?"

"Oh I see we're back to 'huh', that was your favorite word for a few month while you recovered, I thought we lost that a couple weeks back," Danny is grinning at his friend.

"Whatever. Listen guys, I won't be in tomorrow I'm taking a personal day. The Governor's informed. Oh and Danny don't bother coming by after your meeting tomorrow, take your time with Grace. Chin, Kono I hope you'll have a great party. Guys I gotta go see you later," before they can even blink he is out the door.

"What the hell was that? Fifteen minutes ago he was totally depressed and now he is almost glowing with excitement. What just happened," Danny is looking at Chin for an answer as if he knows everything.

"How should I know? I think YOUR brilliant plan just backfired big time."

If they only knew how big.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve is on his way to the base when he tries to reach Cath one last time, but again he only gets her voice-mail. He already left two messages and a note on the fridge. He leaves another one before he turns his phone off. He really wanted to talk to her before he boards the helo that will take him to the Enterprise.

He had a few minutes under the shower to think about his friend's odd behavior, all of them to be busy on his birthday was a little strange. He would have bet quite a bit of money that Danny would have spent the day with him and would find a way to reschedule his meeting. Steve can't deny that he is a little hurt that none of his friends, his family can find the time to at least have a drink with him.

Okay Cath has a really good excuse, she can hardly get out of duty. So she's excused, well Kono and Chin also have a good excuse, forty years of marriage is a reason to party. That leaves Danny. Okay Grace is more important than his stupid birthday and a play at school is also more important, but he was really hoping to include Grace to his guest list.

He thinks it was easier when he was on active duty, birthdays and holidays were never really an issue, he was almost always on duty at those times. He missed ALL major holidays with his family, what a joke that was. What family? Now he does have a family, his ohana, but some things obviously don't ever change for him. _Told you it wasn't a good idea to open up to them, shut up you have no idea what you're talking about._ When his vision becomes slightly blurry he becomes aware that a few tears have found their way down his cheeks. He angrily shakes his head and wipes at them and concentrates on entering the base.

At the gate he shows his ID and is assigned a parking spot for his truck. After locking his car he makes his way over to the offices to report for 'duty'.

H50 – H50 – H50

Danny, Kono and Chin are trying to get a hold on Steve for the last three hours now, ever since he left the office, but all they get is his voice-mail that tells them to 'talk'. Which they did, repeatedly, all of them telling him the same: call us.

They also tried to call Cath, but also only got her voice-mail. Which is no wonder, since her phone died on her. They left a message for her at her post but she hasn't called back yet.

"What are we gonna do now Danny? We could call the Governor, maybe she knows more, or we could track his car," Chin is looking at his friend. Chin never wanted to go about the surprise party like his two team mates wanted. He and Cath were very reluctant to 'lie' to Steve. Chin just knew that it would not end well. Yes of course he knows that it kind of got out of hand, the plan only was that Danny would pick Steve up at his house where he was supposed to wait for his friend since everyone else was otherwise busy. He would then take him to the Hilton Hawaiian Village where all his friends were waiting for them. They were able to get hold of some really longtime friends of Steve's from his time at the Academy and during his career, friends he stayed in touch with by phone and email over the years, but who didn't see each other very often if at all in the last few years.

And now it looks like that the only one who will not be there is Steve, because they have no idea where he is.

"Okay track his car first before we call the Governor to ask where our leader is, that would go over really smooth."

Chin doesn't need to be told twice, it only takes a minute to pinpoint their friend's truck's location.

"He's on the base," Chin is grinning at his team mates. "No wonder Cath is not answering, who knows what those two are doing."

"No. No way, not while in uniform. Both of them are too military to do something stupid on the base. Let's call Cath again," he only has to wait a few seconds before he gets connected to the switch board.

"Yes hello this is Detective Williams with Five-0 I like to speak to Lt. Rollins please."

"Yes Sir one moment."

They tried this a few times before and every time the call to her direct number was rerouted to the switchboard and just bounced back to him unanswered, not so this time, "Lt. Rollins."

"Cath! Please tell me that Steve is with you."

"Danny! No, why would he be here? I spoke with him a few hours ago, he isn't with you?"

"No he left over three hours ago. He made some calls and then told us he won't be in tomorrow. He went from depressed to excited in a matter of minutes. Something is up and his truck is parked on the base. So we thought that he is visiting you."

"He is here? Danny stay in the line please, I'll call someone, be right back with you," Danny can hear her making another phone call and she is back about a minute later. "Danny you still there?"

"Yeah, what'd you find out?"

"We are so screwed Danny. This is just one big mess. I told you it is a stupid idea to keep him in the dark, but no you and your ideas. I'm sorry Danny that was not fair, we all agreed on your plan, I'm sorry."

"Hey Cath calm down tell us what happened," Danny has her now on speaker.

"Steve's not on the base anymore. He called this afternoon and switched his training exercise from next weekend to this one. He and five others were flown out to the Enterprise about an hour ago. He'll be back Sunday night."

"Flown out? What do you mean flown out? What the heck is he doing?"

"Danny don't yell at me. He's fulfilling his duty as a Reservist, he has to report to duty once a month, you know that. I guess he thought it would be better to spend his birthday with his Navy buddies than all alone. Can't say I blame him, this is our fault, you know. We made him think that all his friends were otherwise busy."

"Great. This is just great. There is no way that he will be here tomorrow?"

That question actually makes Lieutenant Rollins laugh out loud, "no Danny there is absolutely no way that Steve will be here. He will be pretty busy jumping out of a plane and swimming in the ocean."

"Huh," Danny is well aware that his question is not much better than Steve's a few hours before.

"Steve was scheduled for some scuba diving next week, but the group he joined will be sky diving. Lieutenant Stein told me that they will do some night jumps, I guess that is what Steve was so excited about, he loves that, and on Friday they will start some training mission. Stein didn't know what that would be."

"But Cath there is a tropical storm coming in, they are not jumping during a storm, are they?"

"Chin that's what I'm really worried about, they will normally jump, swim a distance and be picked up again by helicopter out of the water. When they do that during a storm with high waves, it can get really dangerous."

"Oh come on it's just for training, they will cancel that I'm sure."

"No Danny they won't. SEAL's train under those conditions, they will only abort if it gets too dangerous."

"Well then let's hope for really bad weather."

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><em><strong>Well people there you have it the first chapter. Did you like it? Do you think Steve will make it to his own party?<strong>_

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><p><em><strong>So you want a little sneak peek into the next chapter? Okay here we go:<strong>_

**Chapter 02 - Exiting night**

Steve is sitting in the back of the Seahawk helicopter ready for take-off. He is looking at his 'team', when he came to the base he had no idea that he would be the leader of the five guys that are going on this training mission with him. He's the youngest but the only officer. He worked before with Walter Vance, now a Chief Petty Officer. They were on a mission once and they worked well together. The older man transferred to the Reserves a year ago, he's nearly fifty but still fit and Steve knows that he doesn't have to worry about him.

"Vance when was your last jump?"

"Six month ago Sir."

"Sanchez what about you?"

"Last month Sir, I'm only in the Reserves four weeks now, this is my first training," Petty Officer Miguel 'Mick' Sanchez tells him.

"Butler you're still active and here to make sure the training is realistic," Steve had that job two times during his time on active duty when he had to train with the Reservists.

"Yes Sir. My team is on leave in Pearl at the moment."

"Glad to have you here, I'm sure you can show us some new things that changed in the last months."

"I'm glad to help Sir, good to have you guys at our back when we need you."


	2. Chapter 2

_**I'm totally overwhelmed by the response to the first chapter of this story. Thank you all so very much. Some of you have PM disabled so I can't thank you personally.**_

_**And now on with the story.**_

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><p><strong>Chapter 02 - Exiting night<strong>

Steve is sitting in the back of the Seahawk helicopter ready for take-off. He is looking at his 'team', when he came to the base he had no idea that he would be the leader of the five guys that are going on this training mission with him. He's the youngest but the only officer. He worked before with Walter Vance, now a Chief Petty Officer. They were on a mission once and they worked well together. The older man transferred to the Reserves a year ago, he's nearly fifty but still fit and Steve knows that he doesn't have to worry about him.

"Vance when was your last jump?"

"Six month ago Sir."

"Sanchez what about you?"

"Last month Sir, I'm only in the Reserves four weeks now, this is my first training," Petty Officer Miguel 'Mick' Sanchez tells him.

"Butler you're still active and here to make sure the training is realistic," Steve had that job two times during his time on active duty when he had to train with the Reservists.

"Yes Sir. My team is on leave in Pearl at the moment."

"Glad to have you here, I'm sure you can show us some new things that changed in the last months."

"I'm glad to help Sir, good to have you guys at our back when we need you."

Steve is looking at Butler and smiles, he knows that SEAL's give up their leave time to train with the Reservists, because there is only one way to keep a Reservist SEAL capable to go on a mission, he has to train with active SEALs and in live-conditions. Normally a Reservist would go on active duty for a year after five years in the Reserves, if that person is not up to date and ready to go, well then there is really no need for him to be in the Reserves in the first place. And of course the SEALs have an interest in keeping the Reservists on their toes, because their lives may depend on one of them one day. So it's in their best interest to keep the training as real as possible. They are not weekend-warriors as Danny once called him. He was actually a little offended but kept his mouth shut, because it was not the first time he had to listen to that from other people. And he knows that Danny respects his status as a Reservist, Danny knows that he's not willing to give up the Navy yet. But still it hurt a little to hear that from his friend after he came home from one of his weekends. Tired, sore and really not in a good mood, because he was just 'killed' on the mission and tanked the op. That was not one of his glory days, he made a stupid mistake and paid a pretty hefty prize for it. But at least he learned from it and he was the only 'casualty'. He never told Danny about that weekend. Maybe he should someday.

"Sir is it true you're running the Governor's Task Force," Petty Officer second class James Miller is asking Steve.

"Yeah that's right. I'm heading Five-0 since last year. Sandburn you okay back there," Steve is looking at Petty Officer third class Tom Sandburn.

"Yes Sir."

Steve is looking at the five men, who are ready for their first flight, jump and swim. If it were his team he would tell them to skip the Sir but he doesn't know them and it's protocol to keep it up during training, it's part of the training as his CO likes to tell him. Steve thinks it's BS and he knows that on the second day at the latest they will be down to McGarrett and the Sir will only make an appearance when it's really called for. It's hard to call someone Sir when you crawl with said Sir through the mud or swim in the ten foot waves.

He hopes that the ten foot waves won't make an appearance today, he heard of course the weather forecast and on their briefing they were informed that the weather is not looking good but they still got the go ahead. So now they are sitting in a Seahawk and waiting for it to reach the right altitude so they can make their first out of four night jumps. He thinks it's a little excessive, to go through all of it four times. They have to jump and then to swim one mile before they will be picked up by SAR to be brought back to the carrier to make their next jump. One mile doesn't sound so much, he swims a lot more every morning, but it's night, it's open water with high waves and in full gear. That is no picnic and Steve knows that he will be damn tired when they are done. They all will be.

In the early morning they will get an hour rest before they'll go on their training mission, they still have no idea what that might be. They only know that they are supposed to get back to Oahu undetected, which they will do with a HALO jump, but they were not informed yet what their mission on the island entitles.

Steve's looking at his watch, 20:00 hours, not a lot of time until early morning, if they don't hurry they won't get that hour rest before their second part of their training. It will be some really long days, he got up really early this morning and he didn't sleep very well last night in the first place.

"One more minute Commander," he hears the voice of their pilot.

"Okay get ready, last check," they all check the equipment one last time.

"Thirty seconds."

"Remember to swim to the coordinates, try to stay together, when you reach the coordinates inflate your life vest, turn the light on and wait for SAR, it's training for them as well. Everyone ready?"

He gets five affirmatives in his ear piece and takes the headphones off, he blows his nose to relieve the pressure and so far he has no problem with his healed eardrum, his doctor told him it's okay to get to high altitudes.

The red light suddenly changes to green and six men jump into the stormy night.

H50 – H50 – H50

Danny Williams is pushing his Dinner around on the plate, he really isn't hungry anymore. He and the rest of the team including Cath are sitting at the table in Danny's favorite Restaurant. They're all there to discuss what to do about Steve's party, now that it looks like as if Steve won't be there.

"I really have no idea how this could go so wrong," Danny is looking at Cath.

"I don't know Danny, I called him like you asked and told him that I won't be home for the weekend because we're on lock-down. He was really disappointed, it took all my willpower not to tell him to forget all I said. He sounded so sad. I felt like an ass."

"That's what I said, we should have told him, this was all wrong," Kono is looking at Danny.

"Hey that's not fair. I was not very keen on this whole plan, but I agreed to it, as did you Kono, it's not fair to blame Danny." Chin's looking at his friend, "it's not your fault Danny, it kind of got out of hand. We should have all seen it. This is not our brightest hour. What are we gonna do? I mean some of his friends are already on their flights in to Hawaii."

"I know. We will have that party just not with Steve."

"You want to have a birthday party for Steve without Steve," Cath is looking at her boyfriend's best friend like he's lost his mind.

"You have a better idea?"

"No not really," she must admit.

"Cath is there any way you can get information on what they're doing?"

"Who?"

"Steve! Can you find out where he is?"

"I know where he is. He's near the Enterprise jumping out of a helicopter from about ten thousand feet, swims around in the ocean to be picked up, and does it all again."

"If the weather gets too bad will they be flown back to the base?"

"Probably, they will most likely abort and cut the training short. But Danny the storm is not bad enough for that. It's just some high winds, high waves, but not really a storm. It was already downsized from tropical storm. They won't abort."

"Damn. Why the hell did he have to change his plans?"

"Guess he didn't want to sit around all alone. I mean think about it: this year is the first year that he really has a family and is not in some godforsaken desert or in the middle of the ocean but on his home-island with all his friends here. I'm sure it's way harder for him right now than while on duty, back then he had no choice, but this time he was abandoned by us."

"We didn't abandon him, well from his point it probably looks that way. Damn this is so screwed. I only wanted for him to have fun, to show him how much he means to us. This is not what I had in mind."

"Danny I'm sure we will all laugh about it later, he'll see what you had in mind and believe me he'll be really happy, even though his birthday party will be a little later," Cath tries to lighten Danny's mood a little.

"Kono is right this plan sucks and I was stupid to think that we could surprise our SEAL like that. I'm sorry guys I should have seen this coming."

"Danny don't be ridiculous. Come on eat your dinner and then we will plan the party, who knows by some miracle he might even be here."

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve always finds it very exhilarating to fly through the night sky. It is thrilling and calming at the same time. Of course they are not falling blind towards the sea, they all have their night-vision goggles on, but it's not the same as at daytime. They are falling through the air at one hundred twenty miles per hour and it will take about forty seconds to reach two thousand feet when they will open their chutes. Which won't allow for much to go wrong, jumpers who do this for fun will open their chutes at around five to four thousand feet, but Steve and his team are not doing it for fun. They are professionals and don't have the time to lazily sail through the air and enjoy the slow decent under the canopy of their chute.

They don't open as low as with a HALO jump but it still doesn't leave them a lot of time for error. Steve can already see the rough sea under him when he tugs on the line to open his parachute, he can feel the hard stop to his rapid decent immediately. It's always a pretty hefty jolt that goes through one when going from one hundred twenty miles per hour to just fourteen miles per hour in a really short time. He has to kick a little to get a twist out of his lines but it looks like to be a perfect finish to his first jump of tonight. Right over the water he clicks out of his harness to land with a perfect feet-first-dive in the ocean. Some strong kicks get him away from the open chute that's now floating on the surface but it would normally sink down in a matter of minutes. But since this is training and not a mission there is a buoy on it that will keep it afloat and the gear will be picked up later by the support team. He puts his fins on and is on his way to the rendezvous-point, the weight of his gear is pulling him down but he powers through the water and the pretty high waves with a decent speed. He thinks about that he needs to do this three more times so he's pacing himself a little, not much sense to power himself completely out on the first go. The standard time for a SEAL after BUD/S to swim the standard two miles in the ocean is seventy-five minutes, so he wants to complete the first swim in forty minutes. A manageable goal since they only have to go half the distance, but still he's sure that they will need more time in the later runs.

He thinks back to his time in the water with Danny when they were blasted into the ocean by that mini-explosion. _Danny will surely think you're nuts to swim like this without being forced. Right._ Steve groans inwardly when he becomes aware that he is again talking to himself, something that happened quite often lately, _at least you're not talking aloud_. He's not really worried about it just a little annoyed, when he was a kid he was talking to his imaginary friend all the time, he just hopes he won't make an appearance again. He hasn't talked to Barney, _yeah not very original I know_, since he was seven.

Steve can't see any of his buddies but saw all of them safely entering the water, but the high waves make it impossible to keep them in sight. It takes him thirty-eight minutes to reach the coordinates, but his starting point was not a complete mile away, it would be impossible to land exactly a mile from the rendezvous point. The high winds are a real obstacle and they were lucky to land pretty close to the landing zone. He loves to exercise and the night jumps are always a thrill for him, but he almost hopes that the training will be cut short. The waves are getting really high and the water is a bit cold even though the wet suits they're all wearing keep them reasonably warm. Still not cold water conditions, but combined with the task to swim in the rough sea and the fact that they all had a full day of work behind them, he's not looking forward to do this three more times.

He inflates his life vest and can now at least rest a little and doesn't need to work so hard to stay afloat. Petty Officer Vance reached him by now and both are looking for the others, Steve was pretty surprised that he was the first to reach their pick up zone, Butler is an excellent swimmer who even competes in triathlons so Steve thought that the active SEAL would beat him to it, but so far no sign of him. Looks like he'll be the last to arrive.

Even over the wind and the sound of the waves around him Steve can clearly hear the distinctive sound of the helicopter that's supposed to pick them up. The pick-up is not as easy as in calm waters, because of the up and down of the waves the pilot has to be on top of his game to get the rescue swimmer into the ocean and the SEALs safely out of it. Of cause Steve and his team are highly trained and have done this sort of thing hundreds of times but it's still tricky and even more so at night.

The SEAL-team is now complete and they're waiting for the SAR-crew to begin picking them up. As the commanding officer Steve will be the last to get on board, first he has to make sure that his team is safe. It takes a few minutes but finally they are all on board of the Seahawk helicopter and are on their way back to the Enterprise to get their new gear and do it all again.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve is utterly exhausted after they completed their fourth run, he's sitting at a table in the mess hall, a hot cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake with a small candle on in front of him.

One look around at his team mates tells him that they are not faring any better. The waves have picked up a lot during the night and to swim in the ocean in that weather was really hard work and after the third swim he felt a little twinge in his right ankle. Nothing serious but it takes a toll on the ankles to swim with fins. After their fourth trip he put the brace back on, better be safe than sorry.

The ship is rolling in the high seas, not that much since it's a carrier, but it's enough to make Steve a little queasy. It's nothing he can't handle or would make him sick, but it adds to the tiredness and the aching of his whole body.

He's thinking about how he could now at this very moment lay in bed at home, snuggling with his girlfriend and getting his first present of the day. Instead he's sitting here among almost strangers, sure they share a link through their SEAL training and he trusts them on a mission, but they're still strangers to him. The thought about Cath makes him smile but just for a fraction until his thoughts wander to her being on lock-down for the whole weekend. Which brings him to his friends, who will all be busy today, which he finds rather strange. As strange as their behavior was the last few weeks. He remembers that whenever he came into the room they stopped talking, first he didn't think anything of it, but later he wondered about it. It's almost like they don't want to share something with him.

He filed it away as them just getting closer, he was on sick leave for many weeks and they did become a close group of three. He still struggles sometimes with a feeling of not belonging, like he's still lost on some days. Sure they work perfectly in sync again and the banter between him and Danny is as strong as ever and he loves to work with all of them. He's mostly happy in his job and in his private life, but still there is sometimes that little nagging voice in his head that reminds him that it was not a good idea to open up to them like he did.

He made himself vulnerable because of it. And every time they stop their conversation when he enters the room, it lets that voice come to the forefront loud and clear. Never once occurred it to him that they might be planning something nice for him and just doesn't want him to know so he can have this big surprise party. It never occurred to him that a whole bunch of people would invest so much time and energy into something just for him, just because they love him and want him to have the best birthday of his life. It hasn't registered with him yet that he's important to them, so important that they could not imagine their life without him anymore, that they opened up to him just as much as he did.

Sandburn's voice shakes him out of his thoughts, "Sir can you tell us again why we had to do this four times? Isn't it protocol to only go through the routine twice Sir?"

"Well Sandburn since we're in the Reserves which means that we don't train as much as the active guys we have to do a little more on our training weekends," Steve tells him with conviction but has the sneaking suspicion that they were punished because his CO hates him. And now his whole team has to suffer because of it. Commander Michaels can't stand Steve ever since he transferred to the Reserves and runs the Task Force the Commander is after him for all kind of things. Thankfully he normally is not under his command, but with him switching his weekends he ended up under him again.

Steve has to laugh a little at the thought that Danny thinks only the Officers at HPD have some beef with him, a non-police-officer heading Five-0. But he's not faring much better with the Navy they are not very happy with him as well for switching to a police force. A lot of people think that after so much money was invested in him that it's a waste of talent and resources to lose him to do _police work_. And he's getting heat for it on occasion.

"But I'm sure we can all handle this," Steve is looking at all of them.

"Yes Sir of course we can. Was just thinking out loud Sir," Sandburn is looking like he's not sure if he's in for it or not.

"I know and it's fine don't worry about it. Anyone want my cake?"

"Yeah I'll take it, you don't eat chocolate McGarrett," Sanchez is snatching the chocolate cake from him and digs right in.

"Nah not for breakfast at five in the morning," Steve has to laugh at his team mate who seems to be very happy to munch on another piece of the rich cake. Sanchez is only a couple years Steve's senior and transferred to the Reserves because his wife died and left him with three children.

"It's a shame that you have to train on your birthday Sir."

"No that's okay, haven't had a party in twenty years so nothing new there. Let's finish up here our briefing is in ten minutes."

"Any idea what's the mission about Sir?"

"No Vance only that we're supposed to get back to Oahu undetected, but after that your guess is as good as mine."

"Excuse me Sir I have a message for you," a young seaman just approached their table.

"A message?"

"Yes Sir, there was a phone call for you while you were still out Sir."

"Who was calling me?"

"I don't know Sir, switchboard gave the note to me Sir, I'm just the runner."

"Thank you seaman."

"Yes Sir," with that he gives Steve the folded piece of paper and is gone again.

The message is just a short note from one of the guys in the com center.

-To: LCDR McGarrett

-From: LT Rollins

-Text: please call us if you can – nhjci – good luck and hb – lc

Steve has to smile despite the fact that she should know better than to try to call him while on a training mission, well okay it's his birthday and they didn't talk before he left, but still it's a little odd for her to call him. He's for a moment debating to actually call back but instead opts for a text message, so he turns his phone on and sends his short message:

-I'm ok – tac – wywh – gtg – ls

Steve can't suppress the small chuckle when he thinks that he just texted his girlfriend a love-note like they were some lovestruck teenagers, well probably one that only she can read and knows what it means. He turns his phone off and puts it back in one of the many pockets of his pants. To keep his phone is one of the privileges of being not just in the Navy but also the head of Five-0, he argued that he needs to be able to reach his team from time to time during training. Of course only at appropriate times. This seems like an appropriate enough time to him.

"We should go or we'll be late for the meeting. Mick you're done with your cake," Steve is grinning at his team mate who's still eating, despite the fact that he already had a big breakfast and three pieces of chocolate cake.

"Sorry Sir," he's sheepishly smiling at his laughing peers.

"It's a good thing we're done swimming or you would surely drown," Butler is shaking his head at him but wonders were Sanchez puts all the calories, he's even leaner than McGarrett.

"Okay guys let's move."

If Steve would have known that the briefing would be the first step to their doom he probably would have stayed in the mess hall.

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p>Just for your information:<p>

NHJCI – nothing happened just checking in

HB – Happy Birthday

LC – Love Cath

TAC – Tired and Cold

WYWH – wish you were here

GTG – got to go

LS – Love Steve

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><p><em><strong>Thanks again for reading.<strong>_

* * *

><p><em><strong>And as always a little sneak peek into the next one.<strong>_

**Chapter 03**

Cath didn't sleep well at all. She is lying awake for an hour now thinking about what Steve might be doing at five in the morning. She hopes that he's all right and actually having some fun but this is not how she envisioned his first birthday while in a relationship. She thinks about how this surprise party went so wrong, they had it all planned so nicely. Danny's idea was actually pretty good, but somehow it took a turn to the worse and she can't really pinpoint when that was.

She couldn't hold in her laughter last night at the dinner when she got a call from the resort on the Big Island to confirm the change in reservation from this weekend to next. She still has no idea why they called her, how they even got her number. But she totally cracked up, when it was suddenly clear to her that Steve had a little surprise planned on his own and their planning actually busted his planning. And now with him gone it couldn't get any worse.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Thank you all again so much for reading. **_

_**I updated my profile so if you like to know what's coming up next, check it out.**_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 03<strong>

Cath didn't sleep well at all. She is lying awake for an hour now thinking about what Steve might be doing at five in the morning. She hopes that he's all right and actually having some fun but this is not how she envisioned his first birthday while in a relationship. She thinks about how this surprise party went so wrong, they had it all planned so nicely. Danny's idea was actually pretty good, but somehow it took a turn to the worse and she can't really pinpoint when that was.

She couldn't hold in her laughter last night at the dinner when she got a call from the resort on the Big Island to confirm the change in reservation from this weekend to next. She still has no idea why they called her, how they even got her number. But she totally cracked up, when it was suddenly clear to her that Steve had a little surprise planned on his own and their planning actually busted his planning. And now with him gone it couldn't get any worse.

She still feels really bad about making him believe that none of his friends were there on his birthday, they should have listened to JoJo who said that it would not be the best idea. She said it would be best to actually ask him what he would like to do on that day when he had for the first time all his friends and family around. But they were planning this party for weeks now and just wanted it to be perfect.

Cath almost jumps when her phone suddenly rings with the signal for a new text message. She smiles when she sees that it's from Steve, she's a little surprised that he answered her call, she knows that a call during training is reserved for emergencies only and that the Navy has a very strict policy about that. But with him being head of Five-0 he received phone calls during training before so they are used to it by now and they are not frowning on it anymore. Well at least she hopes that he's not getting heat for it and keeps quiet about it. Would be right up his alley.

Her smile gets even bigger when she reads his text. _Yeah I wish I were there too_. She has no idea what they are doing on their 'trip' but she just hopes that he'll be okay, she's a little worried that he confessed that he's already tired. She knows that he didn't sleep well last night and now being awake for over twenty four hours and two more days to go, probably with little or no sleep, that is not something she likes to think about. Risk of injury increased immensely while being tired and worn out. _Oh stop it, he's a SEAL for crying out loud, he can go days without sleep_. She tries to listen to reason and the Naval Officer in her knows of course that Steve knows his limits and what he's doing, but the girlfriend in her can't but worry.

With a groan and finally giving up on going back to sleep she gets out of bed, one glance out the window finalizes her decision to skip her morning run. The wind is still pretty heavy though it's no storm anymore, but the light drizzle is what's keeping her from taking her run. She never liked running in the rain, other than Steve who kind of enjoys it. She slipped once on the wet surface and busted her knee pretty badly ever since then she's reluctant to run in the rain.

She needs to be on base in a few hours but will only attend a seminar about Fire-safety of all things, which will end at fourteen hundred and then she's off duty for the weekend. Plenty of time for last minute preparations for the party, which reminds her again that the guest of honor will not be there. That again is a real damper to her mood, but it makes no sense to dwell on that, nothing she can do about it now. Another damper is the thought that Mary is not going to be there, she changed her mind in the last minute. Said something came up and that she can't make it. Cath doesn't really understand what's going on, she thought that after Steve and his sister had a long talk and after the ordeal with her kidnapping that they were on good terms. But on the other hand she didn't come to see Steve while he was recovering from his injuries. She barely called a few times, Cath knows that Steve is deeply hurt that his sister is shutting him out of her life again. But he's not talking much about it, only says that he's partially to blame since he was the one who send her away this time. She really wanted Mary to come to the party in the hope that the two siblings might reconnect. With that thought she steps under the shower to start her day.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve and his team had a briefing where they got their instructions. They are supposed to do a HALO-jump and land in the designated landing zone which happens to be in a pretty dense part of the jungle on Oahu. The HALO-jump in itself is tricky and dangerous but to land in such difficult terrain only adds to it. This time they will jump from twenty thousand feet and their chutes will automatically open at one thousand feet. That leaves no room for error, if the main chute won't open there is almost no time to open the reserve one, considering that the normal one needs about six hundred feet to open. Granted the reserve is a little quicker but Steve already had one bad HALO-jump and has no intention to experience that again. But he and the team are more than qualified to succeed with that, but it's still a little unusual to do such a dangerous thing after the night training and all this just for training.

After they landed they are supposed to move two miles through the dense jungle to a location to 'rescue' some hostages which they have to carry to a rendezvous-point where they are picked up by helicopter. They will probably encounter hostiles, the Intel on that is not clear and the 'hostages' are dummies who Steve finds harder to carry than real people.

Now they're all sitting in a C-2 waiting for the catapult start. Steve checks his gps and other gear again, they will be at twenty thousand feet in a short while and after that it just goes down. They get the signal for the start, take the start position and a second later they get pressed into the seat when the plane gets catapulted off the carrier. A few minutes later they all relax a little and go through the pre-jump routine. Since they are only jumping from the half-distance of the standard HALO jump they don't need that much preparation. They don't even need to carry oxygen for their jump since their descent will be a rapid one and the altitude is not that high to begin with.

Since the plane is specially for this kind of mission to bring small groups to the jump zone it's not really comfortable. It takes them only half an hour to reach their designated jump point. The jump master is opening the back door and the team is lining up to finally start their 'real' training weekend. Again Steve will be the last to leave the plane to make sure that everyone gets on his way safely. It takes only a few seconds before he can hear the 'go' in his ear piece and everyone jumps into the morning without hesitation.

H50 – H50 – H50

Danny Williams is early, but he couldn't sleep and since the weather is still pretty bad he decided to come to work early. But he's not the first to arrive at seven in the morning, Chin beat him to it which makes him smile.

"Hey Chin, what you're doing here so early," a legit question since there is no case they are working on right now.

"Couldn't sleep, thought get a head start on the paperwork. I still have to fill out that report the DA wanted about the last drug bust. You have any idea how to explain why a Caterpillar and a police cruiser landed in the harbor basin?"

"Oh no my friend I was not with Steve this time so you're on your own with that. Maybe you should let Steve fill out that form, I mean he's the one who drove that monster of a machine."

"Not such a good idea, the DA wants to get the paperwork back this century," Chin is grinning at Danny.

"Well then just do what I do."

"What's that?"

"Creative writing. Sometimes you just have to wing it."

"That's very helpful Danny, thanks brah," the sarcasm is not lost on Danny who just leaves Chin's office with a laugh only to run into Kono.

"What is this today, our boss is not here and we have nothing better to do than being in the office at seven in the morning? Don't you guys have a life," Kono is looking at both of her colleagues.

"You're one to talk," Danny is waiting for an explanation why Kono's here so early.

"Couldn't sleep. I'm worried okay? Did you look outside lately? Steve's out there doing who knows what, thinking that we're not there for him. Okay fine, I admit it I'm a little freaked. It's his first real training after his recovery and I can't explain it Danny but I have a really bad feeling."

"Hey it's okay, he's fine. This is what he does, what he did for a living for a long time. I will deny it if anyone repeats this, but Steve knows what he's doing. Don't worry, he's fine."

Danny will know soon enough how very wrong he's about that.

H50 – H50 – H50

They form a perfect line and follow Vance who is the 'navigator' and will lead them to their landing zone. The nineteen thousand feet free fall are not that much to make a lot of corrections to hit their target but Steve trusts Vance to make the right moves so that they will get as close as possible.

Steve can't really say how it happens, but at two thousand feet the impossible does happen, he crashes into Miller who was right in front of him. Or better Miller crashes into Steve, he somehow loses control and turns during a small correction of the course. The formation they are flying is so close that the error causes them to crash into each other.

The impact is really hard and Steve gets hit in the head by the rifle that Miller has strapped in front of him, for a fleeting moment he is dazed despite the helmet he's wearing. With a speed of one hundred seventy feet per second it leaves them roughly five seconds to untangle themselves before their chutes will automatically open. It seems that Miller is unconscious and makes no move to get into a position where his chute can safely open. Steve tries to turn him and move him a little away from him, but before he can complete that task their chutes open and he gets hit again this time by Miller's boots. And this time it knocks him out for a few seconds.

He wakes to the sight of trees rapidly rushing towards him, of course he knows that it's him that is doing the rushing. His speed is still a little faster than it should be, but he doesn't have time to correct his descent. He knows that he will crash into the trees any second now and tries to prepare for impact, but it's still a surprise how hard it actually is. He is suddenly stopped, from approximately twenty five mph to zero in a second flat. That alone knocks the wind out of him, but what's knocking him out cold is the crashing against the tree trunk of the huge tree he landed in. He's hanging unconscious in his harness about fifteen feet off the ground. Miller might even fare worse, no tree is slowing his descent he's crashing to the ground with at least still twenty mph, which is fast enough to cause serious injuries.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve feels like he was hit by a bus, his head is foggy and his ears are ringing. His back is screaming at him to get out of the position he's currently in, head down securely held by his harness, feet tangled in the lines of his parachute. He has no idea how he ended up in that position or for how long he was out, he only knows that he needs to change it before all the blood is rushing into his head. He already feels like his head is going to explode any second now. He moves to get his feet out of the tangled lines and suddenly drops a few more feet only to be stopped with another bone jarring jolt. _But at least you're closer to the ground_. He is still about seven feet off the ground a drop he would normally have no problem with but he's not sure that he can make it safely down. His back is hurting badly but he can move without problem, _probably bruised or a pulled muscle_, his head is still a little fuzzy and he has a major headache. Since his ankle was hurting already he's not sure if he hurt it even more when he crashed into the tree. His whole body is kind of aching, _well that's what you get for crashing from twenty thousand feet without enough time to slow down_. Steve is shaking his head to clear it some more and just ignores the resulting shot of pain behind his forehead.

One last look down shows that the ground is relatively clear and so he clicks out of his harness. The drop down is not as bad as feared and he takes the brunt out of it when he rolls with the motion. He stays down for a few seconds to catch his breath and clear his head; when he hears his team mates coming closer he slowly sits up.

"Commander are you all right," Sanchez and Vance are approaching him. "Sir you're bleeding, did you hit your head," Mick is taking a look at the small cut over Steve's right eye. "We need to patch that up Sir before you get an infection in this environment. Hold still Sir." Sanchez gets their medical kit out and has the wound cleaned and covered in no time.

"Thank you. Did you see Butler, Sandburn or Miller?"

"We saw you and Miller go down, but we lost sight of him when you crashed into the trees. No sign of Butler or Sandburn yet."

Steve lays his head back against the tree and hopes that he's not getting sick but he thinks that he doesn't have a concussion.

"Sir let me check you over," Mick has a pen light ready to use, he's a trained medic and knows what to look for. "Your pupils react a little slow but equally, you may have a mild concussion. You feel dizzy or sick, can you remember how you ended up in the tree?"

"I banged my head pretty hard but I'm sure I don't have a concussion. Believe me I'd know if I did. I'm not nauseas but a little dizzy, Miller crashed into me at two thousand feet and we got a little tangled, our chutes couldn't open freely that's why I ended up in the tree."

"Okay good, if you start to feel worse please tell me, but I think you're right if you have a concussion it's a really mild one, I don't think you need to worry about it."

"I don't, I feel fine, well maybe not fine," he's grinning at Sanchez who is just shaking his head, "but I think I was very lucky. We need to make contact with our missing men, did you see where they went down?"

"Yeah about a hundred yards south, they should be here by now," Vance is thinking the same as his CO, something is wrong.

"Let's not jump to conclusions, maybe they are also up in the trees. This was not the best place to go down. You two all right?"

"Yes Sir we're fine."

"Good then let's move out and find our men, we still have a mission to complete." They gather their stuff and make their way through the dense jungle. They blend right into the green and no one would see or hear them unless the SEALs want them to. It takes about ten minutes to locate their three men, Butler and Sandburn are hunched over Miller who's obviously injured.

"Butler, report."

"Sir we found Miller two minutes ago, his leg looks bad, seems like he crashed down real hard."

Steve can now see that Miller's lower right leg is mangled and he can see the bone sticking out. That is not just a serious injury due to possible blood loss but also due to a high risk of infection in this conditions.

"Mick see what you can do for him," he doesn't need to tell their designated medic twice. Steve also has more training as a medic as the average SEAL, and the normal education for a SEAL is pretty high already. He took extra classes just because he was interested in it, but Sanchez has a lot more experience than he does, so he's glad to leave him to it. "Need any help?"

"Yes can you put an IV in while I immobilize his leg," Mick is checking Miller's vitals who's still unconcious.

"Yeah sure, You want to give him a shot for the pain before we move him," he looks at Mick while he's preparing Miller's hand for the IV. "Sandburn get on the phone we need a medevac as soon as possible. Five hundred yards to the south is a clearing that should be big enough for the rescue team."

"Yes Sir," Sandburn gets a connection to the base and relays the information of their location and the situation they're currently in. "Sir they say about twenty minutes."

"Okay good, you and Sanchez you stay here with him until SAR is here, after he's save you follow us and we rendezvous at this point," Steve is laying out the map of the area. "We should be able to meet at 10.00 hours. We will try to get a visual on our target and come up with a plan. Any questions?"

There are none. Vance, Butler and McGarrett are on their way to rescue some 'hostages' while Sanchez and Sandburn stay back with their fallen team member for now.

H50 – H50 – H50

It's just 08.00 hours when Lieutenant Catherine Rollins enters the base, she still has an hour until her seminar begins, but she hopes to get breakfast with one of her friends who transferred here just a week ago. Lieutenant Katy Perez got a post in the Com-Center, she likes working with her, did that on numerous occasions and is glad to have the opportunity to do that again.

Katy's shift was just over a few minutes ago but she promised to wait for Cath so they could have some coffee together before she will head home.

"Katy, good to see you," Cath sits down at her table where she's nursing a coffee.

"Cath good morning," Lt. Perez is looking around as if to make sure that no one is listening in on their conversation.

"Katy everything okay, what's the matter?"

"Just before end of duty I got a call for a medevac. The request was for a badly hurt SEAL on a training mission, some HALO jump gone wrong. I don't know much more only that they came from the Enterprise. Isn't Steve attending training from the Enterprise this weekend?"

Cath blanched the second she heard about a hurt SEAL, it can't be that he's hurt in a jump again, she just refuses to believe that.

"Yeah he is, you know where the medevac was send to?"

"Here on Oahu, right in the middle of the jungle. It's crazy to land in the jungle with a parachute, those guys are nuts."

"Yeah a little bit. You know where they will take him?"

"Yeah probably here to the base hospital or to Tripler, but I guess he'll be treated here."

"Thank you Katy."

"I really hope it's not Steve," Katy is looking at her friend and hopes that her boyfriend is not hurt again. She hopes that they don't have to go through another trying time like they did a few months back.

"Me too, I'm going to try to find something out. Thanks again Katy."

Cath is on her way to the base hospital to hopefully find out that her boyfriend is still safely traipsing through the jungle or wherever he might be right now.

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><em><strong>Oh oh there you have it. Do you think Steve is safe while moving through the jungle to rescue some dummies? Nah didn't think so.<strong>_

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><p><em><strong>Here's a little sneak peek into the next one.<strong>_

**Chapter 04**

The three SEALs make their way through the jungle always on the lookout for hostiles. They have no Intel on the situation on site, all they know is that two hostages are being held in some kind of building four miles from their landing zone. No information on the number of hostiles or their fire power. That is why they first need to make visual contact before they can think about freeing the hostages.

They are an hour on their way through the jungle when they hear two shots in the distance, "What the hell was that," Vance is whispering to Steve.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Thank you all for reading. I hope you will enjoy the next chapter.**_

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><p><strong>Chapter 04<strong>

"Commander Summers, I'm sorry ma'am, can I have a word with you," Lieutenant Rollins is looking at the doctor who treated Steve a few weeks back.

"Lieutenant Rollins what can I do for you?"

"Ma'am I've heard that a SEAL was brought in, injured on a training mission. Lieutenant Commander McGarrett is on that mission and I just. . .," she is looking at the Commander, fully knowing that she is crossing some boundaries here. But Cath relaxes when she sees the Commander smiling.

"It's not him. Petty Officer James Miller was brought in. I couldn't talk to him yet he's unconscious and right now in surgery for a broken leg. I was informed however that he collided midair with his CO and they both crashed into the jungle because their chutes got somewhat tangled. Miller was not as lucky as his CO he crashed straight to the ground, his CO, I assume Commander McGarrett was lucky and landed in some trees. Got knocked around some but as far as I now is not seriously hurt. The rest of the team is still on their training mission. I can't tell you anything more Lieutenant but I think you don't have to worry about McGarrett."

"Thank you Commander, I really appreciate the information."

"You're welcome. Now you have to excuse me I have some patients."

"Yes of course ma'am and thank you again."

Catherine is looking after Commander Summers and for the first time relaxes somewhat since she talked to Katy. If they continue with their mission that means that Steve is okay or at least not badly hurt. She's making her way to attend the seminar but knows that she will have a hard time concentrating on the lesson and not thinking about her boyfriend who is still out there in the rain. The jungle is a dangerous place in the rain, all kind of things can happen and since she thinks that Steve is kind of accident prone she always worries about it. She can't help it, it just comes with being in love with someone. Thinking about being in love actually brings the first real smile of today onto her face.

H50 – H50 – H50

The three SEALs make their way through the jungle always on the lookout for hostiles. They have no Intel on the situation on site, all they know is that two hostages are being held in some kind of building four miles from their landing zone. No information on the number of hostiles or their fire power. That is why they first need to make visual contact before they can think about freeing the hostages.

They are an hour on their way through the jungle when they hear two shots in the distance, "What the hell was that," Vance is whispering to Steve.

"Let's find out," they move carefully forward, not knowing why shots have been fired, that should not be part of the training scenario. Steve is thinking about all kind of reasons why someone would fire a weapon and give away their position. He is cursing not to have some live ammo for his assault rifle, they were not allowed to carry live rounds because they are not on restricted military grounds but at least he's carrying his service weapon with 'real' bullets in it. Also a concession to his status as head of Five-0. Of course if he'd be on a real mission he wouldn't have any personal items on his person, but he wouldn't need his personal service weapon since he'd have enough real guns on him anyway.

He's looking at his two companions who look just as grim and concentrated as he does, they have their pretty much useless rifles in their hands. Steve pulled his SIG when they heard the first shot, instantly knowing that there was real danger ahead.

The three of them reach a small clearing and stop in their tracks, in the middle of it are two bodies, face down. They carefully approach.

Vance and Butler are watching the area while Steve kneels down to check on the two men.

"They're dead, shot execution style."

"For real Sir," Butler is looking at him somewhat unbelieving.

"Yeah for real. Our training just ended. Let's move back we're sitting ducks here," Steve didn't even finish the sentence when they get shot at. One look ahead shows them that they are outnumbered and since they don't even have any ammo out-gunned big time. Steve gets some shots off while he's running for cover but is only able to hit one of their attackers and he's not even sure about that.

Bullets are flying everywhere around him and Butler and Vance are zig-zagging just like him to the cover of the jungle. He's just entering the foliage when he gets a shove in the back that pushes him forward and lets him lose his balance. He's losing his footage and crashes to the ground, dazed and the wind knocked out of him he feels two hands grabbing his vest and dragging him forward.

A few yards later two arms grab him and haul him back to his feet, his arms are thrown over two shoulders and he desperately tries to put his feet in front of each other. Not very successfully, he stumbles along, not really conscious and not aware that he took two shots in the back, stopped only by his vest.

It takes him a couple minutes before he's finally able to coordinate his legs again, he tabs his fellow SEALs to make them aware that he can move on his own again. They keep pushing a couple minutes longer through the dense jungle before they stop behind a big fallen tree.

They turn to see if they lost the five men that suddenly came back to the clearing. No sign or sound of them so far.

"Sir are you all right? Let me check you out," Vance is addressing Steve who is still trying to catch his breath.

"I'm good just got the wind knocked out of me," but Steve's getting his gear off and Vance helps him out of his tactical vest.

"No entry wound Sir the bullets went straight through your backpack and were stopped by the vest. You have trouble breathing?"

Steve takes a deep breath and can feel that he was obviously hit between his shoulders, he's sure to get another pretty spectacular bruise. But he can move freely without too much pain and his breathing also calmed down. "No I'm fine, guess I was lucky again the backpack slowed the bullets down. Thanks for dragging me along."

"Anytime Sir, here let me help you put that back on," Petty Officer Vance is putting the tac-vest back on and fastens it.

"Thanks, okay listen this is no longer a military operation, we need to call in for back up," with that he gets his sat-phone out and dials HPD. "Watch the perimeter for any hostiles, Butler take my gun, ten rounds left."

"Yes Sir."

H50 – H50 – H50

Cath can hardly hold her laughter in when she looks around the conference room and sees the mixed group of people attending the seminar. Looks to her that everyone who was able to wiggle out of it in the past is now attending. Two times prior she was able to avoid this absolutely boring seminar held by one of the most boring persons she ever met. Fire Marshal James-William Hawthorne, what a name. She still doesn't understand why an officer of the Honolulu Fire Department is giving this lesson about 'fire safety in general'. As if there wasn't enough capable Navy personal to give this class, no they have to sit through four hours of Fire Marshal Hawthorne's 'entertaining' stories. He's one of those people that talk in slow motion with dramatic pauses between words for good measure. Torture, that's what these four hours will be.

She can see that everyone is just as 'happy' to be here as she is. Her mood increases immensely when she sees a familiar face and the almost frantic waving, very un-Captain-like, makes her smile even more. She hurries to sit next to her friend, after officially greeting her, she sits down and leans over to her, "JoJo it's so good to see you."

"Cath I see you're also one of the lucky ones."

"I was so hoping to get out of this again, but no luck. JoJo I need to talk to you about tonight."

"Everything okay Cath? Can I help with something for the party?"

"No. It's. . .JoJo we screwed everything up."

"What do you mean, did Steve find out?"

"No, no he didn't, I wish he did though. We should have listened to you," Cath is looking up, but it seems that Hawthorne is late and that gives her the opportunity to tell JoJo about what happened. "I guess Steve felt really bad after I told him even I won't be with him, he called Lieutenant Stein and switched his training weekend. JoJo he's on a training mission, he won't be at his own party. But the worst is he thinks none of us has time for him."

To her credit Dr. Jordan is not one of those people that like to tell 'I told you so'. She's looking with sympathy at her distressed friend, "Cath, don't worry about Steve. I'm sure he's disappointed but he's in a pretty good place right now, mentally I mean. He will be fine, he won't feel abandoned, he'll be sad that he's not with his friends and that annoying little voice will come forward again, but don't worry he'll manage."

"Annoying little voice?"

"We all have that but Steve brought it to a new level, his self-doubting has a voice and it's bugging the hell out of him. It's his coping mechanism, even though he doesn't know it, but it's good for him. Don't worry he'll be okay, deep down he knows that he's loved, even though he still can't understand why. He's a little dense in that regard."

That actually makes Cath laugh out loud, "You can say that. But JoJo you told us that we should 'handle him with care' so to speak that he wouldn't be able to handle being alone very well."

"And you all did a great job with Steve, you all helped him tremendously and he's so much better now. He's his normal self again and is able to work through his emotions on his own. I would have told you that tonight, I thought it would be a good chance to get you all in one place and inform you about his progress. YOU had a huge role in that Catherine. I'm so happy that you two finally figured out that you belong together."

"Yeah well we got enough hints from everyone, guess the only ones who didn't see it where the two of us," Cath is smiling at Captain Jordan, glad to have her as a friend.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, can I have your attention please," a loud but smooth, deep voice is overlapping the chatter in the room. "I'm very sorry to inform you that Mr. Hawthorne can't give this class today, he fell ill, so I'm stepping in for him."

Cath is looking at the tall young man right out of the annual 'Firemen Calendar', well built, nice smile and hopefully not as dull as Mister Hawthorne. One thing is for certain he will have the undivided attention of every female and the one or other male in the room.

"I'm Peter Jordan with the Honolulu Fire Department and I was asked to 'educate' you on fire safety. To tell the truth I'm a little nervous, because this is my first class and I'm sure some of you know more about fire safety on this base than I do. I like to try a new approach to this class, simply because I don't like this theoretical stuff much and it won't help you much in an actual fire. What we gonna do is we will go to your fire station here on the base and ask the guys there what they think you should know about the hazards on the base. So grab your stuff and let's go."

Cath and JoJo are the last to leave and Cath couldn't be more surprised when the young firemen comes to them, "Hi mom. So they finally got you to attend the seminar." Peter Jordan is grinning from ear to ear.

"Catherine this is my youngest son Peter. Peter meet Lieutenant Rollins a friend of mine and Steve's girlfriend."

"Oh you're Catherine. Very nice to meet you."

"Likewise. I didn't know that one of JoJo sons is with the Fire Department."

"Yeah well I'm the black sheep," he says it with a twinkle in his green eyes while they leave to go to the base fire station.

Turns out that this class in fire-safety was one of the most entertaining ever and if they would be asked everyone would tell that they actually learned a lot during their four hours. The new approach was a complete success and it is clear that Peter Jordan just got a new job. Poor Mister Hawthorne.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve is in luck and gets a clear connection to HPD, he's relaying the information and requests a Crime Scene Unit. A plan is already forming in his head; he's calling the Governor next, takes him only a few minutes to convince her to give him jurisdiction and to 'request' the help of his fellow SEALs. Members of the Military are not allowed to take any actions in Police Operations on US Soil, only if their help would be requested are they able to act. He doesn't have much trouble to convince her that he and his team are the best to track down the killers who are still in the jungle. This is not an investigation but a simple hunt and who better for that than a team of highly trained SEALs?

They will leave the investigation to HPD and Five-0 but the hunt for the killers is theirs.

Next he calls his CO to inform him about the changed situation, the conversation is very short and he's surprised when the Commander tells him that he's free to do his work with Five-0 and that he only wants to be kept informed of the situation.

"Sir, I'll report to you as soon as I know anything."

"You do that Commander, I expect a full report of the incident on my desk on Monday."

"Yes Sir."

Next call goes to his support team that will equip them with some real ammo and what else they will need. They promise to get everything to them in the next thirty minutes. They agree on the rendezvous point and his last call goes to his two team members who stayed back with Miller. He informs them of the slightly changed plans and that they will all meet at the new coordinates to get their new equipment.

For a moment he debates to call in his Five-0 team but decides against it. They will be more helpful at HQ after they get the information from the CSU team than in the jungle. His SEAL team is more than capable to hunt down the criminals and Five-0 can investigate the other angles from HQ. Jameson promised to call them and inform them of the situation.

If Steve is honest with himself he just doesn't want them here. This is his expertise and they will be more effective without three officers traipsing along. He knows that it is a little unfair but on the other hand also true, they simply don't have the training his SEAL-team has. Chin did a really good job while protecting the witness in the jungle and he knows that he could probably handle the situation but he's not really sure about Danny and Kono.

Besides Danny has a very important meeting with Rachel and their lawyer in a couple hours and Steve would never forgive himself if Danny would lose important points in regard of Grace. As it looks at the moment he might even get joint custody or at least a lot more time with Grace. Steve would never jeopardize that, no matter how important the case might be. Of course he has no idea that the meeting is not scheduled for today but next week.

With the backing of Jameson he and his SEAL team will hunt down the criminals and the rest of the investigation should be a piece of cake. Well at least that's what Steve is hoping for.

With all the needed calls done Steve turns back to his two men who were watching him the whole time, "What?"

"Sir what do you think this is all about?"

"Probably drugs. My guess is those two stumbled into their operation in some way, maybe they saw something they shouldn't have. Whatever it is, it's worth that kind of protection. We'll find out when we find them. Come on we need to move, I'm pretty sure they're packing up shop. They know that we made some calls and that the whole area will be crawling with police in an hour the latest."

"We saw them Sir, don't you think they will stick around to get us killed so we can't identify them?"

"I don't think so, they need to save their merchandise, whatever it is. Maybe they will leave two men behind to look for us, but I doubt that. Leave everything but our weapons here, we're faster that way and we won't need our gear. The support group can pick it up later."

"Yes Sir," they leave their heavy backpacks on the ground and only keep their weapons on them. Even though they are only loaded with blanks, they are still real weapons and they won't leave them behind.

"Okay let's move out," Steve is now standing, glad that he's not swaying or dizzy anymore. But his ankle is hurting despite the brace he's still wearing and his back is more than sore from between his shoulder blades all the way down to his lower back. His spine was severely compressed when his descent was so suddenly stopped when he crashed into the tree. He knows that his back will bother him for weeks to come. But he also knows that he's not seriously injured or he wouldn't be able to move completely unrestricted, well if he doesn't count the pain that is shooting up and down his back.

The three SEALs blend again perfectly into the jungle and make their way to the meeting point with their two team members and the support team to get some real firepower.

H50 – H50 – H50

"Okay whose turn is it to get the coffee this morning?"

"Danny don't you mean the malasadas since we have perfectly good coffee in the office," Chin is looking at Danny while smiling because he knows how much Danny loves that stuff.

"No no Chin you can only drink coffee out of a paper cup with them, normal coffee is just not the same."

"Whatever brah, I'm not going I went yesterday."

"Hey don't look at me, it's not my turn," Kono is declaring when she comes to the smart table to see what's going on.

"Fine I go, you want anything," before they can tell him what they want for their second or in Kono's case first breakfast Danny's phone rings, "It's Jameson."

"Governor, good morning what can I do for you," Danny is trying not to think the worst, if something happened to Steve he wouldn't get a call from Jameson, would he?

"Detective you care to tell me why I just had to grant five SEALs the wish to hunt down some criminals in the jungle?"

"Ma'am," Danny has NO idea what she's talking about, "Ma'am I'll put you on speaker."

"I just talked to Steve. He and his team stumbled over some dead bodies, were shot at and had to run since they don't have any ammo. Well obviously Steve does, but that's not the point. They're going after the killers, which are still around there somewhere. What I like to know Detective is why the hell is he doing that with his SEAL-buddies and not with his Five-0 team?"

Danny is helplessly looking around but of course his fellow team mates are as shocked and clueless as he is, before he can even think of an answer Jameson is talking again.

"Is there anything I need to be aware of Danny? Is there something going on I don't know about, why didn't he call you? Danny I just granted an Elite-Task-Force free reign on my island. Please tell me they won't blow up half the island."

"Ma'am I'm sure Steve knows what he's doing," Danny rolls his eyes, highly in doubt of his wayward partner, "as you said ma'am they are the elite. If they're hunting those killers I'm sure they will find them soon, without much hassle at all. I mean that's what they are specialized in ma'am, taking out the target before they even know what hit them."

"That's what I'm afraid of Detective. Get your butts down there and keep me posted. A Crime Scene Unit and HPD are already informed."

She doesn't even wait for Danny to say anything else before she ends the call, "What the hell is he thinking?"

"Well at least he has called in CSU and HPD," Kono is trying to reason.

"Yeah? And why didn't he call us?"

"I don't know Danny maybe there's not much for us to do?"

"Idiot."

"Danny I'm sure Steve's reasoning is logical to him. He's there with his SEAL team, highly trained in that terrain. The objective is to hunt some killers who are on the run in the jungle. Seems to me like a training run for some SEALs, I mean really Danny look at it from his angle. He's already there with his team, he probably even saw the killers, knows what they look like. He only needs to find them and take them in, probably a piece of cake. Besides he did call in back up, he called HPD," Chin is grinning at Danny, fully knowing that he's still fuming.

"And Danny did you think that he might not want to keep you from your important meeting? He thinks you're meeting with Rachel about the custody for Grace in a couple hours. He would do anything in his power to get you to that meeting," Kono is arguing what she thinks is the real reason why Steve didn't call them, "I'm sure if he needs us he'll contact us."

"Whatever. Let's get the information from HPD and get to the crime scene."

"Danny we can't go there like this. It's the jungle, remember our last trip?"

"Please don't remind me of our trip to hell, let's hope this one does not end with Steve lost in the jungle."

Lost might be too strong a word but Danny isn't too far off.

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><em><strong>So now the fun can begin. (Insert evil grin here)<strong>_

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><p><em><strong>And again a little sneak into the next one:<strong>_

**Chapter 05**

Danny Williams is thankful that the rain finally stopped a few minutes ago, he and his team changed into more appropriate attire and are now meeting with CSU at the crime scene after been flown in with a helo provided by the Army. This is developing into a joint operation real fast.

"You know Danny, Steve is going to laugh his head off when he sees you. In boots and cargo pants and all," Kono is grinning at her friend and looks him up and down.

"Very funny Kono. I had no spare clothes in my locker okay? I'm sure he doesn't mind me borrowing some stuff," he's looking down at the pants that were way too long for him but fit pretty well otherwise. "I really don't understand why he loves them so much, they are not even that comfortable."

"Maybe you should buy a pair that actually fits you brah."

"Not you too Chin."

Chin is only laughing and greets Max who's just finishing with one of the bodies, "Max what have you got?"


	5. Chapter 5

_**I wish you all a very merry Christmas, and everyone who's not celebrating that holiday some peaceful days.**_

_**I'm not sure if I will be able to update before the new year, so just in case I wish you all a great start into 2012. May all your dreams come true.**_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 05<strong>

Steve and his team coordinated with HPD and met with Sanchez and Sandburn and their support team that equipped them with ammo and what else they needed and are now on their way to try to intercept the criminals on their way out of the jungle. HPD will put up roadblocks on every road that could be used by a vehicle. Lieutenant Okali agreed with Steve that the suspects would need the road to leave with their merchandise, even though they still don't know what that would even be. He also promised to relate all findings to his team back at HQ.

The SEALs will follow the trail the suspects hopefully left and will try to catch them before they can slip out of the jungle. The terrain won't allow for a huge search party, besides that would put a lot of people at risk, best chance they have is for Steve's team to get to them before they have a chance to regroup and figure out an escape plan.

The airspace is controlled by the Navy, so any escape by an aircraft would be monitored and Steve doesn't think that they have a helo at their disposal.

When the SEALs come back to the clearing where the two dead bodies are still examined they meet with the crime scene unit, but only spent a couple minutes there before they disappear into the dense jungle.

Vance is leading, he is one of the best trackers Steve has ever met, so he takes the lead, "McGarrett look at this, one of them is bleeding, seems like you hit one of them after all."

"Yeah but doesn't seem serious, not enough blood to slow him down much," Steve is looking at the small smear of blood on a tree.

They're lucky that the rain finally stopped and not everything is going to be washed away. Of course the terrain is completely soaked, just as much as the SEALs. They are soaking wet, come to think of it, they are wet since they started their training yesterday. Only time they were dry were the few minutes in the mess hall.

They make good time, it's fairly easy to follow the trail left by their suspects. It doesn't seem that they are interested in hiding their trail at all, which Steve finds rather odd, "Vance!"

"Yeah?"

"Something's not right."

"What'd you mean," his team is looking at him for an explanation.

"It's too easy, they trample through the jungle like a horde of elephants. Their attack was swift and smooth, professional, this here is not them."

"I think McGarrett is right, I think this is another group of people," Vance is looking at a footprint in the muddy ground.

"What other people, who else do you think is out here? That is just stupid, I mean look around you, it's wet, it's cold and muddy, no person in his right mind is going for a hike in this conditions," Sandburn is not in the best of moods. Steve saw that the minute he met him, he's watching him since they were on their first jump. Something is off with him.

"Sandburn, keep your voice down. What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing Sir."

"Okay listen, we're going to follow the trail it's the only lead we have at the moment. Be careful."

They keep following the trail, but Steve can't shake that feeling in the pit of his stomach that something is not right. That they're set up.

H50 – H50 – H50

Danny Williams is thankful that the rain finally stopped a few minutes ago, he and his team changed into more appropriate attire and are now meeting with CSU at the crime scene after been flown in with a helo provided by the Army. This is developing into a joint operation real fast.

"You know Danny Steve is going to laugh his head off when he sees you. In boots and cargo pants and all," Kono is grinning at her friend and looks him up and down.

"Very funny Kono. I had no spare clothes in my locker okay? I'm sure he doesn't mind me borrowing some stuff," he's looking down at the pants that were way too long for him but fit pretty well otherwise. "I really don't understand why he loves them so much, they are not even that comfortable."

"Maybe you should buy a pair that actually fits you brah."

"Not you too Chin."

Chin is only laughing and greets Max who's just finishing with one of the bodies, "Max what have you got?"

"Well, time of death is approximately not more than ninety minutes ago, they were both shot in the back of the head with a nine-millimeter at very close range. As you can see their hands are bound behind their backs, which leads me to the conclusion that they were executed. Their feet are not bound however, which indicates that they walked here. From where I cannot say."

"Anything else Max?"

"Yes. Before they were shot they were severely beaten, as you can see their faces are bruised and their fingers are almost all broken. They were tortured before they were killed."

"Can you say when that happened?"

"I'd say in the last twenty four hours according to the coloring of the bruises. I know for sure after the autopsy."

"Any ID on the victims?"

"No."

"Max is something wrong," Chin is asking the ME who looks very uncomfortable.

"Commander McGarrett told me to send you the prints and my findings to HQ so you can investigate from there, but now you're here. He said you would lead the investigation from HQ, why are you here? He wanted you back at HQ, obviously."

Danny is looking at the ME who looks rather distressed and sounds like it too, "You talked to McGarrett?"

"Ten minutes ago. Left with his team that way," Max points to the right of them.

"Thank you Max. Keep us informed if you find out anything else. Kono you got the SAT phone?"

"Yeah, Danny you wanna call Steve?"

"He's obviously not calling us, so yeah."

He puts the phone on speaker and dials Steve's number, it takes five rings before their call gets answered but they only hear some labored breathing and whispered words but can't make anything out.

"Steve?"

"Danny," it's just whispered and it sounds like Steve's on the move, like he's running through the jungle, "Mick go go go, move it, shit" they hear a gun shot on the phone and live in the distance and more swearing.

"Vance you have a target?"

"No nothing, did you get hit?"

"No. Mick you see anything?"

"I think they're to the left. Steve you're bleeding."

"What?"

"Damn, your shirt is soaked in blood. Let me see. Oh man you didn't feel getting hit? It's just a graze but it's bleeding freely, we need to stop that. Hold this, damn you got hit when you pushed me out of the way. I'm sorry Steve this is my fault. We need to. . ."

"Will you please shut up Mick, I'm fine, put a patch on and let's move on. Vance," it seems that Steve has forgotten that he still has the phone in his hand and has an audience that is listening with increasing concern, "are they moving on?" Steve is still just whispering.

"Seems so."

"Danny you still there?"

"Steve are you all right? What's going on?"

"Danny you at HQ?"

"No we're at the crime scene. What the hell is going on, are you all right?"

"I'm fine Danny. . .argh, Mick stop that, my head's fine."

"With all due respect you crashed into the jungle with only half a parachute and were unconscious for half an hour, you are _not_ fine. You just hit your head again, now let me check you out before you pass out again and we have to carry your ass through the jungle, Sir," 'Mick' Sanchez is not backing down.

"Danny just a sec, Mick stop it. I'm good and my chute was just fine I only crashed into a tree. I'm good. Now put that away and focus on the mission."

"Fine."

"Danny?"

"Steve where the heck are you? You need a medic?"

"Not another one, no I don't," they can hear that the SEAL team is again on the move, "Danny listen we're about ten minutes from your location, since you're here already come after us, we're going to slow down a little. You should reach us in about twenty minutes."

Danny ends the call and they are entering the dense part of the jungle just a minute later and have no problem to follow the trail of the suspects, even Danny can see the imprints on the still muddy ground.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve is cursing, Danny's call came at the most inconvenient time. They were just approaching their suspects when his phone rang, stupid of him not to turn the ringer off. Now they got away again and Steve is frustrated that they again have to run after them, after they almost were on top of them a few minutes ago.

He's a little miffed that his Five-0 team is not at HQ, he's wondering why they are here in the first place. He deliberately didn't call them in, he wanted them to investigate from HQ, _well maybe you should have told them that. But no you didn't even call them_. He knows that it was not the wisest decision not to call them personally but let Jameson handle it and he's not even sure anymore why he didn't. He can't remember his reasoning from not even an hour ago, which he finds a little concerning. His head started to hurt a lot more in the last thirty minutes and Sanchez is probably right that he's not fine at all. He is a little dizzy and is pretty sure that he will lose his breakfast shortly.

Steve and his team can hear the Five-0's long before they can see them and Steve has to smile a little. That is why he didn't want them tagging along they are trampling through the jungle like a damn marching band. He gives the sign to wait for them and they again blend back into the jungle.

When Steve lays eyes on Danny he can't but think that the pants he's wearing are oddly familiar as are the boots. He has to smile despite the situation they're in, he's never seen Danny dressed like this. It's downright ridiculous, Danny can rock the jeans and boots look but cargoes are definitely not his style.

The SEALs step out of their cover and the Five-0s are actually a little startled to be suddenly surrounded by five heavily armed scary looking guys who appear out of nowhere. But before they can even take a closer look three of them disappear again after all of them seem to communicate in some kind of sign language. Up until now they haven't made a sound and the three SEALs blend back into the foliage like they've never even been here.

Danny looks at his friend and wonders how on earth he ever could have called him a weekend warrior. In front of him stands a Lieutenant Commander of the US Navy, a SEAL in full combat gear, he looks nothing like Danny thinks some paint-ball playing 'warriors' look like. Quite frankly he doesn't even look like the Steve he knows. He looks rather intimidating and Danny thinks that he would never wish to be on the bad side of this man in front of him. Of course that look loses a lot of power when Steve can't keep the smile in any longer while looking Danny up and down.

"Don't you start with me. I don't wanna hear a word. Not one word about my attire," Danny's outbreak is met with a raised eyebrow on Steve's part who still hasn't said a word.

"I'm glad you're here," and Steve is surprised about the truth he spoke without even thinking about it, but he's happy to see his friend.

It is a totally ridiculous scene, it's the middle of the jungle, Steve looks like as if he crawled through it, he's muddy, bloody and soaking wet, but Danny just doesn't care. He's hugging his partner, "Happy Birthday my friend", he softly speaks into his ear.

At first Steve tenses up when Danny practically assaults him, but a second later he relaxes and actually leans into the hug and practically soaks in the warmth of friendship and love Danny is extruding with every pore. He holds on to Danny as if his life depends on it.

"Excuse me Danny but leave a little for us to hug," Kono is laughing while she tries to envelop her boss, Chin makes the group-hug perfect. And it's clear that this is not ridiculous at all but very fitting for their relationship. It's unusual but none of them would change a thing about it. "Happy Birthday boss."

"Yeah brah, you didn't think you could slip away like that and not see us on your birthday."

"No I didn't," Steve is looking around and moves his hand, not a second later the three SEALs are back who vanished moments ago into the jungle. "Listen up I want us to split up. Kono, Chin, you and Butler follow the trail a little to the left. Be careful those guys are good and they have nothing to lose. Vance, Sandburn, Mick I want you to follow the trail directly while Danny and I are going a little to the right and try to find their base. I think we're pretty close. Any questions?"

"No Sir," four SEALs are answering at the same time, Chin and Kono just shake their heads 'no'.

"Vance, remember what I told you. Law enforcement, not SEALs, try to arrest them first."

"Yes Sir. We take them in for questioning. Understood Sir. Let's go Ladies," with that the three of them are gone again.

Chin and Kono introduce themselves to Mike Butler and shortly after they're on their way. Which leaves Steve and Danny to fend for themselves.

"Was she pissed?"

"What? Who?"

"Rachel. Danny I'm sorry, I didn't want you to come out here so you wouldn't miss your meeting."

"Steve it's okay, don't worry about it. Everything is fine, I promise. I'll explain later but everything IS fine."

Steve's looking rather strangely at his friend who's looking around like he doesn't know what to do next, "You sure?"

"Yes Steven I'm sure. Come on let's go. This way?"

"Yeah, I think they split up when they attacked us the second time. I'm pretty sure two of them went this way."

They make their way carefully through the densest part of the jungle on Oahu, Steve is again cursing his CO for sending them here. On the other hand without that order they wouldn't have stumbled over the dead bodies and would not get the chance to put some criminals behind bars. Steve is watching his friend in front of him who's trying not to make too much noise and actually looking like as if he knows what he's doing. He has nothing but respect for Danny, even though this is not Danny's environment at all, he would not stop going after the criminals or coming after his partner. Danny never shies away from a challenge, he thrives on them and Steve respects that in a man. Danny will never blend into the jungle, he will always stick out like a sore thumb, but he gets the job done, no matter what.

Steve's back is killing him but it's still not hindering his movements, that will come later when the bruises had time to settle in. He's a little dizzy again and knows that it's not much longer before he's going to be sick.

He's getting a little closer to his partner, "Danny hold up a minute."

"What's wrong," Danny is looking at his friend who looks a little green around the gills, "you okay?"

"Gonna be sick, cover me?" Steve's not even finished when he gets down to his knees and loses every morsel of food he ate in the last week, at least it feels like it.

Danny is keeping watch while Steve's getting violently sick, when he's done Danny helps him to sit back against a tree and gets him a bottle of water out of his backpack.

"You feel better?"

"Yeah a little," Steve's not looking at Danny, but lies his head back against the tree.

"Are you dizzy?"

"No not anymore, my head hurts more than before but in general I feel better. I'll be fine."

"Yeah right, tell me what happened. How hurt are you?"

Steve's looking at his friend and knows that he needs to tell him how he really is "Just bruises Danny. I crashed into a tree and that was not much fun, hit my head and was unconscious for a few minutes. At least I think it were just a few minutes, couldn't have been more than five. Hurt my back during the jump and took two bullets to the vest between my shoulders. Oh and got grazed right below my vest, but that's nothing."

"You have a concussion?"

"No."

"Can you move on? Do we need to evac you? Steve?"

"Danny I'm good. No listen, I was already a little queasy on the Enterprise, me throwing up is not from a concussion," Danny's still looking rather skeptical at him. "Danny I don't have a concussion, I would not still be running around here if I thought I had a head injury I would have flown back to the base. We discussed this before Danny, I told you I will take hits to the head seriously."

"People don't get sick for nothing Steve."

"It's not for nothing Danny. I swam in the ocean for hours, I'm cold and wet for over 12 hours now, I'm hurt and my body is just telling me to stop. To get warm and some rest. Nausea is a normal response to pain and exhaustion."

"Okay I trust you, but you tell me if you get dizzy or start to feel worse?"

"I will Danny. Help me up?"

Danny's helping his friend back to his feet and they continue their way after the suspects. Steve's feeling a lot better after he lost his food, he's pretty sure that him being sick was still the residue from being on the carrier during high seas. That combined with what he went through in the last hours was just too much.

"Danny can I ask you something," Steve's still keeping his voice low, their whole conversation was held in a low voice.

"What?"

"You didn't have a meeting with Rachel today, did you?"

Danny's stopping and looks at his friend, who's looking at him with a face he can't name, probably because he has finally figured out what the secret behavior of the last weeks by his friends means.

"No I didn't."

"And Chin and Kono are not going to some anniversary and I guess Cath is not on lock down either."

Danny is only looking at him, which is answer enough. "You know your planning really sucks Danny. You all lied to me and made me feel like I was. . ." he's not finishing the sentence but moves past Danny and continues to follow the trail.

"Steve I'm sorry. We didn't mean to hurt you. It was not planned like that, I'm sorry it got out of hand. When you came into my office to tell us that you won't come in, we just had decided that we need to tell you about the party. You were so upset and looked so sad, we couldn't take that anymore."

"You have a party planned? For me?"

Danny actually has to laugh at the childlike joy he's just seeing on Steve's face, "Yes you goof what did you think why we told you we don't have time for you? Of course we have a party planned for you. We're working on that for weeks now."

"Really?"

"Yeah really."

"Is Grace coming?"

"I can tell you even though the party is no surprise anymore, you will be surprised about the guests. Now you have to promise me to act surprised, Grace worked really hard on this party."

"I'll be surprised," Danny's never seen him smile like this, as if the smile comes straight from his heart.

"Now can we maybe focus back on the task at hand? You know catch some bad guys, bust some drug ring or whatever they do here?"

"Good idea. Danny?"

"What?"

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><strong><em>I hope you liked it. Let me know what you think.<em>**

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><p><em><strong>And as always a little sneak into what's still to come.<strong>_

**Chapter 06**

Danny is walking behind Steve and tries to make as little noise as possible. He really has no idea how Steve is able to move through the jungle without making any noise. Or almost none that is. His friend seems a lot better since he threw up ten minutes ago but Danny can still see that he's favoring his right leg. He's using it almost normally while walking but whenever they stop he's not putting any weight on it, "what's with your leg?"

"Huh?"

"Your leg. You're limping and you don't put weight on it when we stop, so what gives?"

Steve's first looking down at his leg and then back up to Danny, he was not even aware that he's favoring his right leg. "My ankle started to hurt after the third swim, but it's fine, it's just a little over-strained, nothing to worry about."

"You're wearing the brace?"

"Yes mom," Steve is grinning at his worried friend.

"Keep that up and you won't get any cake later."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Thank you all so much for your reviews and for just plain reading. I hope you will enjoy this next chapter. With this we're already halfway through the story, yeah I know it's a short one only 12 chapters. But after all the drama, hurt and angst in the previous two stories I couldn't do too much damage to poor Steve. I mean it's his birthday after all, but I hope you can forgive me for this not so dramatic story. **_

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><p><strong>Chapter 06<strong>

Danny is walking behind Steve and tries to make as little noise as possible. He really has no idea how Steve is able to move through the jungle without making any noise. Or almost none that is. His friend seems a lot better since he threw up ten minutes ago but Danny can still see that he's favoring his right leg. He's using it almost normally while walking but whenever they stop he's not putting any weight on it, "What's with your leg?"

"Huh?"

"Your leg. You're limping and you don't put weight on it when we stop, so what gives?"

Steve's first looking down at his leg and then back up to Danny, he was not even aware that he's favoring his right leg, "My ankle started to hurt after the third swim, but it's fine, it's just a little over-strained, nothing to worry about."

"You're wearing the brace?"

"Yes Mom," Steve is grinning at his worried friend.

"Keep that up and you won't get any cake later."

"I already had some birthday cake, chocolate-creme with candle and all, well Mick had my piece, five in the morning was a little early for my stomach."

"You're still really sensitive about food? I mean it's weeks now that you're off the drug."

"Just because I watch what I eat doesn't mean I couldn't eat some of your greasy stuff, I just chose not to indulge. . . .," Steve suddenly stops and Danny almost smacks into him.

"What," Danny is whispering and looks around his friend.

Two more steps and they would be on a small clearing, Danny wonders how many of these clearings are in this part of the jungle? Right there in front of them is a small cabin, a very simple structure with a small porch at the front side. They can't hear any noises coming from the cabin so they carefully approach, takes them only a few seconds to take position on either side of the door.

Steve is looking at his partner and after a silent agreement kicks in the door. Even though the door bangs loudly against the wall he can still hear the telltale click-and drop-sound, a sound he's very familiar with, he knows that they only have a few seconds left before they will be blown to smithereens.

Opening the door pulled the pins out of at least two hand grenades which dropped to the floor. At least he heard two drops. He doesn't hesitate even a fraction of a second; he turns and tackles Danny to push him very unceremoniously down the few steps they just came up.

He lands hard on his left shoulder but is still able to cover most of Danny's back and head; he hopes that the debris from the explosion will fly over them since they are a lot lower than the cabin. He doesn't have time to think his actions through and he's not sure what happens first the loud noise of the explosion or the pain that explodes at the back of his head. Last thing he's aware of before darkness descents on him is Danny who's frighteningly still beneath him.

H50 – H50 – H50

Kono and Chin are watching Petty Officer Butler who seems to effortlessly walk through the dense jungle, it's like he's walking on pavement and not the muddy, slippery ground overgrown with roots and all kinds of stuff that makes it really hard to find a solid path.

He stops when they reach a very small trail that seems to lead to the south of them, "Look at this."

The two Five-0's are crouching down to his level, "Damn, those are bike tracks."

"Yeah I think they had some bikes stashed here, I guess two and got away on them."

"I call Okali, maybe they can block their way," Chin is getting their phone out and explains the situation to the HPD Lieutenant, who promises to keep them informed. They have a helicopter in the air and they are watching every road. He ends the call after the short conversation.

"Chin do you want to go after Steve and Danny or the SEAL team," Kono is looking at her cousin.

"We talk to Steve first," again he gets the phone out, "that's strange they're not picking up."

"Okay let's get closer to them," again Butler takes the lead with Chin and Kono following very closely.

H50 – H50 – H50

Danny has no idea how he ended up face down on the muddy ground with a dead weight on his back. He's trying to move but it's hard work to wiggle out of whatever is weighting him down. He becomes aware that the weight on his back and across his shoulders is an unmoving body whose arm is lying protectively over his head. He carefully extricates himself from under the person and is shocked to see that it is Steve that is lying on him, still completely unmoving and out cold.

He carefully turns Steve on his back and is glad to find no bullet holes and no obvious injuries, the movements seem to rouse Steve a little bit, at least Danny thinks so when he hears his friend groaning while being turned. Two bleary eyes are looking at him in confusion, "Danny?"

"Hey stay still, are you hurt?"

"What?"

"Steve look at me, come on stay with me, don't pass out," Danny is trying his friend to focus on him but it seems that is beyond Steve's capabilities at the moment. He's gently laying him back down and checking him for any broken bones or other injuries which might not be so obvious. When he moves Steve's left shoulder, he recoils and snaps awake with a cry of pain. "Sorry, wait let me help you," Danny carefully puts Steve's arm across his chest without jostling his shoulder too much, but he still sees the grimace on Steve's face.

"I think I hurt my shoulder," Steve grits out between his teeth.

"You think? We come to that in a minute, let me check your head first, you were unconscious."

"I was hit by something from the explosion."

"Explosion? We were in an explosion?"

"Danny you all right? You don't remember," Steve is worriedly looking at his friend, for the moment forgetting about his throbbing shoulder.

For the first time since he woke up in the mud, Danny is taking a look around him and can see that they're surrounded by all kinds of debris. Now it becomes clear what happened Steve protected him with his body from the force of the explosion. It only now registers with him that his head is killing him and he can feel a pretty ugly bump on his forehead.

"You pushed me down."

"I was behind you, we would never have made it out, we had to hit the deck," Steve is looking like he did something like that every day, well maybe he did, "Help me up please, we need to find the others."

"We're not going anywhere before I'm done with you. Now look at me."

"Danny I'm fine. . .argh," trying to get up into a sitting position was not Steve's best idea lately, he's falling right back which jostles his shoulder again and lets him pass out cold.

"Stubborn SOB, well at least now you will hold still," Danny is quickly checking his friend out, the blood on the back of his head worries him, but it looks like a small cut and not too serious.

"Argh, Danny stop prodding me."

"Stop moving Steve, damn it let me help you," Danny is getting frustrated with his friend who seems determined to sit up.

"Thanks, that's better," Steve's finally sitting, cradling his arm in front of his chest, hunched over and trying not to move, "Danny can you get my belt off?"

"What'd you want with your belt? Lean back a little, how do you get this thing to open, jeez can't you have a normal belt like normal people," Danny is fumbling to get the belt out of the loops.

"This is a normal belt Danny, argh."

"Sorry. What do you want me to do with it? Steve," Danny is looking at his friend who is by now leaning against him after Danny knelt in front of him. His breath comes in short pants, his eyes are tightly closed but he can still see the one or other tear of pain slipping out. "Shhhh it's okay Steve, come on I lay you back down."

"No don't. . .can't breathe laying down. . .back hurts."

"Okay, Steve you got any pain meds in your first aid kit? Anything I can give you?"

"No, Mick has the supplies. . .argh fuck. . .Danny take the belt and secure my arm to my chest with it."

"Can you sit up a little more, okay good," Danny is putting the belt around Steve and gently secures the bent arm with it, but he can't prevent to move the shoulder a little bit which again lets Steve cry out, "I'm sorry Steve, is it okay like this?"

"Yeah it's good thank you. Can you help me up please?"

"In a minute let me check your shoulder first," Danny gently feels with his hand under Steve's vest and can clearly feel a bump on top of his shoulder. "I think you broke your collarbone."

"Yeah I think I separated my shoulder, but at least it's not dislocated. How is your head?"

"I'm fine."

"Isn't that my line?"

It takes some effort to get Steve back onto his feet, but finally he's standing, heavily leaning on Danny, eyes tightly closed and panting.

"You okay?"

"I will be, give me a minute" Steve bites his lower lip and makes his first tentative step, the pain from his shoulder going all the way down his arm and across his chest. Every minuscule movement, even just breathing, shoots daggers of pain through his shoulder.

"Anything I can do?"

"No. Let's go."

Danny is looking at his boss and friend and can see that he's putting his SEAL face back on, the one that doesn't allow for any emotion to show. He's shaking his head, regretting that movement a second later and wonders how Steve's doing that, shutting the intense pain out just like that. His old partner back in Jersey once broke his shoulder during a chase and Danny still remembers his screams while he was writhing on the ground. He can only imagine how much his friend must be hurting and he's amazed at how well he's able to function again.

Danny's looking back at the former cabin they found on their way to what they were hoping to be the base of the killers. As soon as they set foot into it Steve turned and pushed Danny down the few steps they just came up and down to the ground, he can't remember much after that. It's obvious now that with opening the door they triggered the explosives. Lucky for them to have survived, well thanks to Steve's quick reflexes.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve's sitting against a tree trunk and is gritting his teeth, the pain in his shoulder reached an unbearable level by now. A few minutes after Danny secured his arm to his chest the pain lessened a lot and he was able to move on but now he would gladly be willing to gnaw his arm off if that would stop the incredible pain that is boring into his shoulder, arm and chest with every breath.

"Steve you with me? The team should be here any minute now and then you can get something for the pain, just hang in there a little longer," Danny is trying to make his friend as comfortable as possible. He is actually amazed at how long he was able to walk, but a minute ago he stumbled and before Danny could do anything he fell to the ground. It's clear that he will not be able to move on. Which doesn't really matter since they reached the rendezvous point they radioed to the three SEALs and to Chin, Kono and Butler.

After almost blown up by the trap at the cabin and the news from Chin that two of the killers got away on some bikes they decided to regroup and go after the remaining suspects together.

"Danny we're really close to their base, there are a lot of tracks now, see all those imprints? A lot of people were running around here, I think it means we're pretty close, argh damn."

"What the hell are you doing? Stop moving Steve, you can't get up, please just for once stay put," Danny is gently pushing his friend back down, "Steve are you cold? You're shivering."

"No, it's mostly from the pain," he's leaning back against the tree and tries to control his breathing.

"You want some water?"

"Yeah thanks."

It takes another couple minutes until the members of the two teams finally meet with them and Mick Sanchez goes straight to work.

"McGarrett let's get you out of your gear first," Mick is loosening the makeshift sling but makes sure not to move his arm.

"Can't you give him something for the pain first, some morphine or something?"

"Yeah in a minute help me get his vest and shirt off. I'm sorry Commander but this is gonna hurt."

By the time they have the vest off and the left arm out of the shirt Steve is trembling and on the brink of passing out. Mick is carefully examining his left shoulder, a dark bruise already formed and covers most of the shoulder area and practically meets with the bruises on his back where he took the two bullets earlier.

"I think you're in luck Steve, looks like some bad bruising from the fall and a partial separation, I'm not sure about your collarbone there is a lot of swelling, you may have fractured it, but your shoulder is pretty stable and I think only your AC is torn," Mick is putting his arm back against his chest and looks at Danny, "Give me my bag please?"

"What's the AC?"

"Well in easy terms the shoulder blade is connected to the collarbone with two ligaments the AC and CC, the AC is on top of the shoulder and the CC goes down. It looks to me that Steve suffered a type one or two separation where the shoulder is only partially separated. Of course we need an x-ray to see the extent of the separation and if the collarbone is fractured, but I'm pretty certain that he was lucky. I'm going to give you something for the pain and immobilize your arm, that will also help with the pain. Do you have any numbness in your arm or fingers?"

"No I can move everything, it just really hurts."

"Okay, Danny can you give me the cold pack, you need to activate it first by breaking it," Mick takes the cold pack and places it on Steve's shoulder, "that will help with the swelling. Okay here we go with the pain meds." He injects the drugs into Steve's upper arm. "We wait a minute before we put your shirt back on okay?"

"Yeah fine."

It really takes only a minute for the drugs to take effect and they have Steve back in his shirt and vest without too much pain. Mick is securing the arm again to his chest and puts the cold pack under the vest on top of his shirt, "Steve is it okay like that? How is the pain?"

"It's fine, doesn't hurt much. Thanks Mick. Can you take a look at Danny, he was knocked out by the explosion, he was disoriented and can't remember what happened," Steve is looking at his friend who he knows is hurting.

"I'm fine Steve, the wind was just knocked out of me."

"No Danny you were unconscious and had no idea that we were caught in an explosion. Don't think I didn't know you hit your head, just humor me okay?"

"Detective let me take a quick look at you," before Danny can even protest any more he is already sitting down next to Steve and Mick Sanchez is examining him, "You have a nasty bump on your forehead, did you hit the ground?"

"I don't know, Steve tackled me and after that I'm not sure what happened."

"Yeah that's what you get when 170 pounds barrel into you," Mick is grinning at his CO's friend. "Your pupils are pretty slow to react and you can't trace the light very well. I'd say you have a concussion for sure, how's the pain?"

"I have the mother of all headaches, but I'm not dizzy."

"Well that's good but to tell the truth you're worse off than Commander McGarrett. We should get you to the hospital to make sure that there's no bleeding or swelling."

"Okay Vance call Army evac, two to fly out," Steve is not going to risk losing Danny to a stupid bump to the head.

"Steve that is ridiculous, I don't need to be flown out."

"Danny that was not a suggestion. Chin and Kono can take over, we don't have to be here. You need an MRI and I will not risk your health for some drug dealers or whatever their business might be."

"Oh right, but you can risk your health?"

"No I'm going with you, remember two to fly out. I'm not much use here with the busted shoulder, I'm a liability as are you Danny."

"You surprise me Steven, I would have bet you'd stay here."

"Danny this is not a war zone, I have a choice, I don't have to stay here. Vance?"

"Yes Sir?"

"I want you and the team to support Five-0 any way you can, I trust you to be their back-up."

"Yes Sir, nothing to worry about."

"Good. Chin you're in command, Petty Officer Vance and his team will support you, they have a lot of experience just tell them what you need. Be careful, all of you, remember they have nothing to lose, they know that they're surrounded and have not much of a chance to get away. They will revert to desperate measures. Sandburn you stay with us and accompany us to the pick up by the Army. Any questions?"

"No Sir," again the SEALs speak as one and Chin and Kono just shake their heads.

"Chin keep us posted, we'll be transported to the Navy-base hospital."

Danny is getting up on his own and Steve is helped up by Sandburn who doesn't look happy at all. Steve's looking after his team when they again disappear into the foliage. "Okay let's go, we should reach the clearing in about fifteen minutes, Danny you okay?"

"Yeah."

Steve's not so sure about that answer but is not pressing the matter, Danny looks pretty pale and he hopes that his friend is not getting sick. As long as Danny was preoccupied with his worry about Steve he was feeling rather good but after sitting down he's feeling pretty crappy. His head hurts and he got dizzy when he got up.

They make their way through the jungle always on the lookout for the suspects since they have no idea if they might have doubled back or not.

H50 - H50 - H50

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><p><em><strong>Thank you all so much for reading. Now all they have to do is getting to the pick-up point to catch a nice helo-ride. That should be easy enough. ;-) What? You don't think so? Well . . .<strong>_

_**Little sneek peak into the next one.**_

**Chapter 07**

Steve switched to SEAL mode a few minutes back or at least to an island-moderated SEAL mode. It's the only way he's sure to endure the pain that is creating havoc in his back, he isn't even sure any more which is worse the lower part of his back or high up between his shoulder blades. Not even to mention the shoulder that doesn't want to be left out of the pain festival of the various bruises he received over the course of the last few hours. He doesn't even want to think about tomorrow when all the contusions had time to really settle in. Steve's sure that he won't be able to move much in the morning.

But for now he is keeping up his pace with Danny and Sandburn, he's still able to block out most of the pain and concentrates on the task at hand: reach the pick-up zone without incident. Sandburn is leading with Steve as last man. He's wondering about Danny who seems to be fine, but he can see that he stumbles the one or other time and Steve's sure that his head is bothering him way more than he lets on.

It should take them only a couple more minutes to reach the clearing where they will be picked up by the Army evac helo. But suddenly Sandburn signals them to stop, they immediately do so and listen to the sounds of the jungle around them. Every jungle has their own very specific sound, it all depends on the creatures living in it and of course if it is more or less cultivated by humans or left undisturbed. The only thing Steve can hear at the moment are some birds in the distance but they don't sound distressed, somewhere to the left there is a sound from an animal moving over the soaked ground. It's too low a sound to be from a person.

He makes his way forward to Sandburn to learn what made him stop, he passes Danny and signals him to stay put. A few more steps and he's next to his subordinate who's leaning against a tree, weapon ready and looking at Steve.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 07**

Steve switched to SEAL mode a few minutes back or at least to an island-moderated SEAL mode. It's the only way he's sure to endure the pain that is creating havoc in his back, he isn't even sure any more which is worse the lower part of his back or high up between his shoulder blades. Not even to mention the shoulder that doesn't want to be left out of the pain festival of the various bruises he received over the course of the last few hours. He doesn't even want to think about tomorrow when all the contusions had time to really settle in. Steve's sure that he won't be able to move much in the morning.

But for now he is keeping up his pace with Danny and Sandburn, he's still able to block out most of the pain and concentrates on the task at hand: reach the pick-up zone without incident. Sandburn is leading with Steve as last man. He's wondering about Danny who seems to be fine, but he can see that he stumbles the one or other time and Steve's sure that his head is bothering him way more than he lets on.

It should take them only a couple more minutes to reach the clearing where they will be picked up by the Army evac helo. But suddenly Sandburn signals them to stop, they immediately do so and listen to the sounds of the jungle around them. Every jungle has their own very specific sound, it all depends on the creatures living in it and of course if it is more or less cultivated by humans or left undisturbed. The only thing Steve can hear at the moment are some birds in the distance but they don't sound distressed, somewhere to the left there is a sound from an animal moving over the soaked ground. It's too low a sound to be from a person.

He makes his way forward to Sandburn to learn what made him stop, he passes Danny and signals him to stay put. A few more steps and he's next to his subordinate who's leaning against a tree, weapon ready and looking at Steve.

They communicate without any words and Sandburn 'tells' him three men about forty feet to the right what he doesn't tell him, because he simply doesn't know, is about the two men about fifty feet to the left of them.

Steve signals Danny to come closer and whispers the information to him, "Danny stay here, you're our back up. Sandburn and I will take them you need to make sure that they can't get away this way. Questions?"

"Be careful," Danny is not questioning the tactic the two SEALs agree on and they disappear right in front of his eyes.

Steve is silently cursing his bum shoulder, the injury makes it difficult to get a firm grip on his assault rifle. But the strength in his arm is still enough to hold the rifle, but the pain of course intensifies tenfold with every movement. _Well that can't be helped at the moment_, Steve and Sandburn are slowly gaining some feet on their target and are almost on top of them when all hell breaks loose.

The firefight is short but heavy, the three men in front of them were obviously just a trap and they marched right into it. They never saw the other two coming before it was too late.

Bullets are suddenly flying all around Steve and he's not missing a beat to return fire and if the scream he hears is any indication he even hit his target. A bullet flies right by his head, way too close for comfort when he sees out of the corner of his eyes Sandburn making a dash across a small open space. And to his horror he witnesses how he gets hit. Steve always wondered if all the movie-makers ever watched a person getting shot. If so they would know that it's not as spectacular as it is shown in the movies, Sandburn is not thrown back by the force of the bullets tearing into his chest. He simply stops his mad run and falls face first to the ground and doesn't move anymore.

It takes Steve a few more seconds to take the remaining two gunmen out before he runs to his fallen comrade. That's when the trap reaches its final stage. Not aware of the two gunmen from the left he's almost defenseless while he tends to Sandburn, defenseless except for Danny, who's still the back-up. Unbeknown to Steve, Danny is very close to him and guards their position.

When Steve hears Danny's shout to get down he does so without question or hesitation, he throws himself over Sandburn and shields him with his body while bullets fly over him. He can hear Danny's cursing before he returns fire. It only lasts a few seconds before Danny is next to him declaring the all clear.

"Steve you okay?"

"Yeah. You," while he turns Sandburn over to access his injuries he looks at Danny and can see that he's bleeding from a wound on his upper left arm, "Danny?"

"It's nothing, I'm fine."

"Danny help me get his gear off, ah damn we need to stop the bleeding."

Sandburn's chest is a bloody mess, he took three bullets which penetrated his vest, they were slowed down somewhat which might give him a chance of survival. But the wounds are bleeding freely and if they're not able to stop it he'll be dead before they can get him help. With only minimal supplies Steve is forced to improvise. He puts two gauze pads on the three bullet wounds which are very close together and secures them with his belt that still hangs loosely around his neck. The pressure should stop or at least slow down the bleeding. It's effective but Sandburn already lost a good amount of blood and his heart stops shortly after. Steve doesn't waste any time and starts with CPR.

"Danny go to the landing zone, it's about a hundred yard straight ahead, get the medics here as fast as you can. The helo should be here any minute."

"You all right back here?"

"Yeah, go Danny," Steve is stopping his compressions for a moment to breathe some air into Sandburn's lungs. He watches his friend disappear into the jungle in the hope that help won't come too late. He's anxiously looking around him, not sure if there are any more hostiles or not. This is not how he pictured his training and certainly not how he pictured his birthday. Steve's concentrating back on Sandburn whose chances of survival are minimal, Steve knows that of course but he's not going to give up on him.

The pain in his shoulder is no longer ignorable, with almost one hundred compressions a minute it's a constant stabbing pain and Steve's not sure how much longer he'll be able to keep going. He's afraid to stop to breathe again for Sandburn, not sure if he's going to stop if he'll be able to get his arm to move again. The newest regulation for CPR even suggest to forego the breathing part completely but it's way too long for the medics to arrive so Steve is giving at least some air into the lungs of the gravely injured Sandburn and keeps the compressions up. He's aware of course that his attempt might be futile but it's not his call to make, he's not a doctor after all.

So he keeps going, by now almost screaming in agony from his various injuries and tears of pain and exhaustion are finding their way down his cheeks. After what feels like forever but is in reality barely ten minutes he finds himself moved away from the body and lowered to the ground with someone hovering over him. Help finally arrived. For just a moment he gives in to the pain and just lets go. Next thing he's fully aware of is he's in the back of the medevac helicopter with Danny's stretcher next to him.

Outside he can see Chin, Kono and the rest of the team, _when the hell did they arrive and how did I get in the helo_, Steve's looking at Danny who seems to know his unspoken question.

"You walked here, like a zombie but under your own power," Danny is telling him over the noise of the blades.

"You okay Danny?"

"I'm good. The team will come after us in the next chopper. They're all okay, they found the hidden dope and two more gang members. With our five dead guys and the two that got away we have nine."

One of the medics is coming to him and secures him on the stretcher, Steve informs him of Danny's injury and what happened to them during their trek through the jungle.

"Don't worry Sir we're taking all of you to the base hospital, we'll be there in about five minutes. Just try to relax."

"How's Sandburn?"

"Not good Sir, we're doing everything we can. You did good Sir. Both of you hold on we're going to take off," not a second later Steve feels the helo getting up and leaving the jungle behind.

H50 – H50 – H50

Captain Jordan and Lt. Rollins are among the group of twelve Officers who are attending the fire-safety seminar. They spent the last three and a half hour roaming the base, led by Peter Jordan and Lt. Becks from the base-fire-station. They are now at the base hospital to learn about evacuation procedures, every one of them should know where to bring their injured colleagues while the hospital is in evac-mode.

"Attention! Incoming casualties – ETA two minutes – all ER personal report to stations," the speaker-system is announcing.

There is a sudden flurry of activity around them, every one of them gets out of the way as best they can. Cath is right next to Dr. Summers who answers her phone.

"What do we get. . .what more SEALs. . .what the hell are those guys doing. . .a detective. . .why the. . .I understand. . .one critical. . .got it. . .names. . .conditions. . .all right I hear the helo. . .see you in a minute."

"Okay listen up everyone – team one you take PO Sandburn, multiple gunshot wounds, in full arrest-team two, you take Detective Williams, head injury, gsw left arm, conscious and coherent; team three we take LCDR McGarrett, also head injury, injured shoulder with possible fractures, unconscious-the last two were not only in a fire fight but also caught in an explosion, so check for internal injuries. Any questions? Good here they come."

Before Cath or JoJo can ask Dr. Summers any questions, the door to the ER is pushed open by a gurney with PO Sandburn on it. Kneeling on the gurney with his knees left and right from him is a medic who's doing chest compressions. It's a shock to see the injured person drenched almost completely in blood, they can see at least three blood soaked huge gauze patches on his chest, he's intubated and is wheeled right into one of the trauma rooms.

Next is Danny, strapped on a stretcher and obviously not very happy, "Get me off this thing, I don't need no freaking CT, I'm fine."

"Detective your CO ordered you in here, I suggest you just get it over with," it's obvious that the medic is as pissed, if not more so, as his patient.

"My CO? I'm not in the freaking Army."

"Navy Sir, we're Navy!"

"Whatever. STEVE! Tell them that I'm fine."

"Your partner can't answer you right now, detective please calm down."

"What? Steve! He was fine a minute ago, I need to see him," Danny is trying to get off the gurney.

Before he's going to hurt himself the trek stops for a moment so that Detective Williams can see his partner who's just wheeled into the ER. Strapped on a gurney, still soaking wet, bloody and muddy, with his arm still bound to his chest, but other than that he just looks like he's asleep.

"Detective, don't worry, he's fine, he just passed out from exhaustion and pain. I promise you we'll take good care of him. Now please let us take a look at you, Commander McGarrett will be really mad if we don't follow his orders."

Danny makes a real effort to calm down and everyone breathes a sigh of relief when he finally can be wheeled into trauma room two and the door is shut after him.

JoJo and Cath look at the closed doors of the two rooms and hope that both Steve and Danny will be fine.

"Captain, Lieutenant if you like you can wait in the waiting area, the rest of the team is also on their way in. They should be here in about ten minutes. Don't worry I'll inform you as soon as I know how McGarrett is. Detective Williams seems to be just fine," she's smiling and tries to reassure the two friends.

"Thank you Commander we appreciate it."

"Yes ma'am of course. Now excuse me," she turns and slips into the room where they can see that Steve is just being cut out of his wet fatigues.

"Come on Cath, she's right, we're only in the way here. They'll take care of Danny and Steve," on their way to the waiting area in the back of the ground floor they meet again with JoJo's son to inform him that they'll stay in the hospital until they know more about their friends.

"Sure Mom no problem. Sorry. Captain, Ma'am."

JoJo only laughs at her flustered son and joins Cath in the waiting area.

H50 – H50 – H50

**Meanwhile in Trauma 1**

"Get the crash cart. Charge to three hundred. Clear. . .charge again. . .get some more volume into him. . .come on people. . .charge again. . .we got a weak pulse. . .get that chest tube in. . .damn look at that. . .where is all that blood coming from. . .we need to get him up to OR right now."

"BP's dropping again. . .we're losing him. . .eighty over forty. . .he's coming back. . .move it before he crashes again. . .how long was he out?"

"Not sure, at least twenty minutes. . .McGarrett already worked on him when we got there."

"Okay, is the OR ready?"

"Yes Sir they're waiting for us."

"Okay people let's move him."

PO Sandburn is wheeled out of Trauma one with all the equipment that his life depends on at the moment. No one knows if they'll be able to save him and if so if he will have brain damage or not. Even though his CO was able to give him CPR and kept his BP in an acceptable range, no one can say for sure if his brain was oxygen deprived for too long or not. Everyone is thinking in the back of their minds about saving a possible brain dead person but none of them would do anything less than their best to save him because that's their job, to save the life and not to decide if that life is worth living or not.

**At the same time in Trauma two**

"Will you please listen to me, please?"

"Detective the sooner you let us do our job the sooner you will be out of here."

"I walked through the jungle just fine, I _do not_ have a brain bleed or whatever you call it. I don't need any CT's."

"_Mister_ Williams, you have a concussion and your CO," when he sees Danny glaring at him Lieutenant Kula corrects himself, "Your _partner_ told the medics that you where disoriented, confused, and unconscious for how long he couldn't say. The bump on your forehead indicates a rather hard impact onto the ground, it is already established that you at least have a concussion and such impact can lead to life threatening conditions even hours after the incident. If you don't want a CT or MRI we have a choice. We can admit you for at least twenty four hours and monitor you closely for any signs. OR you get an MRI and might be out of here in a couple hours. So which is it?"

It's clear that Danny will lose the glaring match that started a few minutes ago, but he must admit that he found his match in the young Lieutenant, "Okay fine do your thing. But I'm telling you I'm fine."

"You most likely are and we're just going to make sure that we don't overlook anything. Don't worry Detective you will be out of here soon. Please prep Detective Williams for an MRI and get him out of the dirty clothes, I'm sure we find something for you to wear."

"I'm not going to wear one of those wimpy gowns, forget it!"

Lieutenant Kula is glad to leave the loud detective behind and goes to find his friends to update them on his status.

**Trauma three  
><strong>

It's the only trauma room where there is no hectic action or loud complaining by a patient.

"Commander can you hear me? Come on it's time to wake up, open your eyes McGarrett," Lieutenant Commander Summers is trying to rouse her patient who is by now out of his soiled and wet clothes and covered to the waist with a warm blanket. Her gentle prodding seems to work when two sleepy eyes are looking at her, "Nice of you to join us Commander. Didn't I tell you a few weeks back that I don't want to see you again in here?"

"Sorry," Steve is smiling at his doctor, remembering the last time he was in her care, "Danny okay?"

"He's next door, if his loud complaining a few minutes ago is any indication he's fine. He's going to get an MRI but that's just a precaution. Now about you, tell me what happened," she's doing a neuro check and looks at his shoulder and probes the area without moving his arm.

"Fell on it when I pushed Danny down, think I aggravated it a little when I did CPR on Sandburn, how is he, is he going to make it?"

"I don't know, he just went up to the OR, we have to wait for word on him, sorry. We need an X-Ray of your shoulder, we'll do that here with a portable one. Your back looks bad, I also want some pictures, don't move, stay still or we'll strap you back down. When did you hit your head?"

"A few hours ago when I crashed into a tree, was out for only a couple of minutes. How's Miller?"

"His leg was pretty messed up it's to early to tell if he'll make a full recovery. Does this hurt?"

"Argh!"

"Sorry." She gently places his arm back into a more comfortable position, "I think you were really lucky, I don't think your collarbone is broken, but your AC is definitely torn. You did CPR with this arm? No wonder you're in a world of hurt, you could have seriously hurt your shoulder moving like that. How did you even do that, no don't answer that," she is smiling down at him while she's listening to his heart and lung, "Well that sounds good, your BP is good as well. I'd say we wait for the x-rays and in the meantime try to relax, I'm reluctant to give you anything for pain, I really want to wait until we know more about your back and shoulder, to make sure that you don't need surgery. Can you hold out for a few more minutes?"

"Yeah as long as you don't want me to walk around I'm good."

"Okay, oh great the portable x-ray is here, Mike I need left shoulder and from the neck down to his lower back please. Commander any pain or even just discomfort in your hips or legs?"

"No nothing, well my right ankle hurts a little."

"Okay Mike you heard the man, also right ankle. I'll be right back Commander, be nice to Mike it's his birthday, btw congratulation to the both of you."

"Thanks."

To get the x-rays only takes a couple of minutes and just ten minutes later Dr. Summers is back with the films. Steve is dozing after he was finally able to get completely under the blanket, if they would give him something to wear under that thing he would be really happy.

"Well Commander as I said you're one lucky guy. Nothing broken. You took a really hard hit to the shoulder the bruising is very deep and intense, that will hurt for some time. But as predicted only the AC is partially torn, a week in a sling and the worst should be over. The pain from the bruising will last a little longer for sure. Now your back is a different matter, nothing broken but the severe pain you're experiencing in your lower back might be from a ruptured disk which is pressing on the nerves. We should get a CT to make sure nothing else is going on. That jump was very hard on your messed up vertebrae. Not even to mention the massive bruise between your shoulder blades. I heard you took two bullets to the vest. You really don't do things in halves do you? Your ankle doesn't show any bone damage the pain is probably from overuse, keep the brace on and you should be fine in a week."

"Okay. Can I get some clothes, it's getting cold."

"Yeah sure, I'm going to organize a uniform and stuff while you're getting the CT. Don't worry Commander I'm sure you're leaving us in a couple hours if you don't develop any complications from your back. Mike can you take him up to the CT? I'm just giving him something for the pain first," she is already injecting him with a strong painkiller, "Commander if you're tired don't fight it, try to rest some you'll feel better in a few minutes. I'm going to inform your friends about your condition. Okay Mike ready to go."

"My friends?"

"Captain Jordan and Lieutenant Rollins were here when you came in, they're in the waiting area."

"Damn."

Summers is only laughing at him and goes to inform his friends.

H50 – H50 – H50

* * *

><p><em><strong>Thanks again for reading. I hope you're not too disappointed that the 'casehunt' was wrapped up rather quickly, but please remember this is really more about Steve getting to his party than him hunting some criminals. But don't worry the next story with Steve in peril is already in the works. I hope you're enjoying it anyway. **_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Here's a little peek into the next one:<strong>_

**Chapter 8**

It takes them only a couple of minutes to find 'their men'. Even without a room number they would have had no problem finding them; they just needed to follow the noise.

"I'm telling you Steven I'm not going to get dressed in these ridiculous clothes. First I have to wear your cargo-pants and if that wasn't bad enough now I'm supposed to get dressed in _this_? I look like an idiot. Not gonna do it."

They can hear Danny's yelling even through the closed door.

"Fine," Steve's reply is almost inaudible.

"Fine? FINE? That's all you gonna say about it? This, this is not fine. Who the heck is wearing something like this?" They can clearly hear that Danny is getting worked up over something; they're really curious what kind of clothes they found for him. They're just about to enter the room when they hear Steve's soft spoken voice, a clear sign that he's beyond the stage of being amused by Danny's rant.

"Danny for all I care you can go as you are if you prefer that, I'm sure a lot of people would enjoy the show. What is wrong with you anyway? Why the hell do you make such a big deal about those clothes?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Thank you so much for your alerts, favorites, pm's, reviews and plain reading. When I started posting here on FF-Net in April I never thought I would be having so much fun. Never in a million years did I think that I would get that much encouragement and support. Thank you so much for all of it. You have no idea how happy I am that you're enjoying my work, I never imagined that posting that short little fill-in-story would lead to this. Thank you!**

**Now on with the story.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 08<strong>

Cath and JoJo are anxiously waiting for news on their friends. A few minutes ago, Lieutenant Kula informed them that Danny is on his way to get an MRI, but is to believed not to be seriously injured besides from a concussion. They stand up when they see Lieutenant Commander Summers approaching them.

"Did Steve wake up," Cath is forgoing all formalities.

"Please have a seat. Don't worry Commander McGarrett will be fine. He was not unconscious from a head injury, he bumped his head somewhat during his HALO jump, but he doesn't seem to have a concussion. His neuro check was just fine I think he passed out simply from exhaustion and pain when the helo landed. He woke up right away when I spoke to him. Commander McGarrett separated his shoulder, don't worry that is also not too bad, painful due to heavy bruising but he should be able to move his arm fairly well in about a week. He took two bullets in the back to his vest, but got away again with just bruising. His lower back is causing him severe pain at the moment that's why I sent him up for a CT to see if he ruptured a disk. That jump and mid-air collision and the subsequent crash into a tree were very hard on his back. BUT it seems that he really is just badly bruised, which is rather painful but will heal with some time. So basically, if the CT doesn't show any complication which I'm sure there won't any, he will be released today."

"Thank you, that's good news for once. Any news on Danny Williams?"

"Not that I know of. I'm sure his doctor will contact you soon. I'll let you know when you can see Commander McGarrett, as soon as he's back down I'm coming to get you."

"Thank you Commander."

"You're welcome."

They are both looking after the doctor and are more than happy that is seems that the latest adventure didn't end in disaster after all. Now they only need to get their two men back on their feet and they might even be able to actually have a birthday party later on.

H50 – H50 – H50

Chin and Kono joined them for a short while but headed back to HQ after making sure that their friends are going to be okay. They were flown in with the second helo with the rest of the training group. Now they're back at HQ to coordinate the fallout from capturing the drug runners.

As promised Dr. Summers tells JoJo and Cath about an hour later where to find Steve. He's been transferred to a room after his CT, "Does he need to stay?" Cath is instantly worried that the CT revealed some hidden injury.

"No but we need the trauma rooms, he's just in a private room to get dressed and for his final instructions before he's released. Detective Williams will also be up there."

"Thank you."

"I'll be there in about half an hour," with that she leaves JoJo and Cath to their own devices.

It takes them only a couple of minutes to find 'their men'. Even without a room number they would have had no problem finding them; they just needed to follow the noise.

"I'm telling you Steven I'm not going to get dressed in these ridiculous clothes. First I have to wear your cargo-pants and if that wasn't bad enough now I'm supposed to get dressed in _this_? I look like an idiot. Not gonna do it."

They can hear Danny's yelling even through the closed door.

"Fine," Steve's reply is almost inaudible.

"Fine? FINE? That's all you gonna say about it? This, this is not fine. Who the heck is wearing something like this?" They can clearly hear that Danny is getting worked up over something; they're really curious what kind of clothes they found for him. They're just about to enter the room when they hear Steve's soft spoken voice, a clear sign that he's beyond the stage of being amused by Danny's rant.

"Danny for all I care you can go as you are if you prefer that, I'm sure a lot of people would enjoy the show. What is wrong with you anyway? Why the hell do you make such a big deal about those clothes?"

"Why I. . .are you kidding me? Look at this!"

"Yeah Danny, pants and shirt. I'm sorry maybe I hit my head harder than I thought, because frankly I don't get it. What's wrong with them?"

"What's wrong with them? They are three numbers too big, at least. I'm going to drown in them, that's what's wrong."

"You're bitching about those damn pants for half an hour and giving me a headache because they're too big for you? Put those damn pants on and shut up Danno!"

Before it could get even more out of hand in that room JoJo and Cath enter and stop in their tracks, because according to the yelling they heard they expected the friends at each other's throats, but what they see is far from that. Steve and Danny are facing each other in the middle of the room, with Steve dressed in fresh service khakis but no shirt and Danny still in a hospital gown with way too huge pants held in front of him. Both of them are grinning at each other like idiots.

Steve and Danny both jump a little when JoJo clears her throat, they both turn and look somewhat sheepishly at their friends.

The two women don't say anything but look them up and down, taking in all the various bruises, scrapes and injuries. The two men seem rather uncomfortable under such scrutiny, but don't dare say anything. Steve has his left arm in a sling, a small cut over his right eyes is glued, at least they can't see any stitches, he seems to stand a little bend forward and on his shoeless feet they can see the brace on his right foot. Danny has a big bruise on his forehead and also his left arm in a sling matching Steve's. He's still holding his pants with both hands in front of him, it's a rather comic sight.

"Uh hi," Steve practically croaks out.

"Well hi yourself," Cath is moving closer and carefully embraces Steve in a hug and gently kisses him, "happy birthday sailor."

"Thank you," he melts into the hug and holds on to her, just now realizing how close they all came to dying. Again.

Cath lets go of him to make room for Dr. Jordan who also hugs her friend, "You really know how to scare your friends Steve. Happy birthday to you my friend."

"Thank you JoJo."

"Danny are you okay? We haven't heard from Lieutenant Kula again," Cath is looking at Danny who's still standing with his pants. "You know what, give me those I'm going to get you some which will fit."

"Thank you Cath, finally someone who sees MY point."

"Danno don't start again, those pants are perfectly fine."

"Yeah for giant Army mutants."

"Navy."

"Whatever."

"You two are obviously fine enough to argue. What the heck happened out there," Captain Jordan is looking at both men.

"The usual, Steve is able to find trouble just about everywhere."

"Hey it was not my fault that we practically stumbled over dead bodies."

"That's debatable," Danny is grinning at his friend.

"You're such a funny guy. JoJo can you give me a hand," Steve is holding his shirt out to her.

"Yeah sure, let me get the sling off first. Oh wow Steve those bruises look bad," Dr. Jordan is looking at the large deep-red-bluish bruise that spans over Steve's whole left shoulder and all the way back down to the matching bruise between his shoulder blades. She can also see the edges of another bruise that goes obviously even a little lower than his belt. "Are you in pain?"

"Not so much right now. Ask me again tomorrow," Steve is smiling at his therapist but she can see the pain behind it.

"Okay here we go, let's get your left arm into the shirt first."

Steve needs to move his arm a little to wiggle into the sleeve but the drugs are still doing a pretty good job, so it's bearable. It only takes them a minute to get the shirt on and JoJo is just buttoning him up when Cath is coming back.

"Danny look I think these should fit you pretty good," she's holding out the way smaller pants for him to see.

"Oh yeah that's so much better," Danny is rolling his eyes at the fatigues. Practically cargo pants in multicolor.

"What?"

"Oh give them to me so we can finally leave this darn Navy base," Danny is snatching the pants out of her hands and marches to the bathroom totally forgetting that he's still just wearing the hospital gown.

"Danny you need a hand in there," Dr. Jordan is calling after him before he disappears out of sight. "Obviously not. Cath you wanna take over your boyfriend here and tuck his shirt in?"

"Yeah let's get you presentable again," Cath carefully puts his left arm back in the sling, not without some wincing which gets noticed of course. Seems that the heavy drugs are wearing off after all. A minute later he's almost perfectly dressed again. "You wanna sit down Steve?"

"No I'm good like this," he's half leaning half sitting on the bed. "Did Commander Summers say when she'll be back?"

"In the next half hour or so. We still don't know how you got injured and why was Danny with you in the jungle?"

Steve takes the next five minutes to tell the mitigated version of what happened over the course of the last hours. How he crashed into a tree, got shot at and blown up. All in all they were really lucky to get away with just bruises.

"I got shot, I did not get away just bruised," Danny is chiming in when he comes out of the bathroom.

"You don't really call _that_ getting shot?"

"The bullet entered my flesh, ergo I'm shot."

"Can you show me the bullet? Nope because the bullet _grazed_ you, _ergo_ not shot."

"What you only count it when you can present a bullet?"

"Yeah sure, through and through doesn't count. So I guess you never were shot," Steve grins at his friend.

"Gentlemen. Nice to see you dressed already," Lieutenant Commander Summers just entered the room and is looking around kind of amused about that argument.

"Doctor did I get shot or not?"

"You came in close contact with a bullet Detective."

"Very nice, you Army guys stick together of course."

"Na-vy," a chorus of four people answers him.

H50 – H50 – H50

"Detective Williams Lt. Kula gave me your medical file, he's in the ER at the moment and ask me to step in for him. So if it's okay with you I'm going to sign your discharge papers and go over the instructions for your further care?"

"Fine by me."

"Good then. Your MRI is clear. . ."

"Could have told you that," Danny grumbles.

". . .however you suffered a concussion. I prescribe some painkillers for your headache, you should take them. Take it easy over the weekend but you can return to work on Monday on light duty if you don't suffer any dizzy-spells. If you do please go see a doctor again. A concussion is not to be taken lightly Detective even if it's not a severe one. Now about your gunshot wound, the bandage needs to be changed every day for a few days. Commander McGarrett can do that he's a trained medic, so you don't have to come here or the hospital. You're on antibiotics against any infection and please keep the wound dry. The bullet took a good size of flesh out of your arm that will take a while to heal so it's important that you take good care of it or there will be a lot of scarring. Let McGarrett help you with that he knows what to look for. Any questions?"

"Uh no not at the moment."

"Good," Lieutenant Commander Summers is handing Danny his discharge papers and two prescriptions for his medication. "Now about you Commander," she turns to Steve who's still sitting on the edge of the bed. "You got away without the clear signs of concussion but I bet that the bump to the head is still giving you a nasty headache. Thought so," she says when Steve is not forthcoming with an affirmative but just looks at her. She's taking out a film from the CT and holds it for everyone to see. They can't see much on it, but she keeps talking, "There is a small tear in the disk between L5 and L4. There is also a lot of swelling and the nerves are under some pressure that and because your vertebrae are already messed up from a prior injury is why you're experiencing such intense pain. I'm going to send the findings to your physical therapist; you need to do some exercises for your back in a few days. Try to ice the area or use a heating pad, see what helps you the most. Some like it better to cool it some like it better warm. Most like the ice first and later the heat. If the pain is still too severe even with the pain killers come back here and we figure something out. Call an ambulance imidiately if you experience any tingling or numbness in your legs or any loss of control over any body functions." LDCR Summers is not just looking at Steve but also at Cath, "it's important to get medical treatment right away if you experience any of that. Questions about that?" Steve only shakes his head fully knowing what his back injury can cause, he has enough experience with paralysis as it is, but that's another story. "Good didn't think so since you've gone through those complications before."

Those words let Danny look at his friend but it seems that Steve's not willing to give any explanations since he's not even looking at him. Danny files this information away to make sure to ask his friend about it later.

"You were very lucky not to do any more damage to your shoulder when you did the CPR on Sandburn," Summers continues. "Nothing's broken but the bruising is very intense and your AC is partially torn. To keep the pain at bay you should keep the arm in the sling at least for five days. After that see if you can handle it without the sling. Your shoulder should be back to pretty much normal in about two weeks. There is some very impressive bruising around your shoulder blades, those bullets did some damage."

"Not as much as without the vest," Steve is muttering under his breath.

"Yeah guess you're right about that," Dr. Summers smiles at him. "Your back will probably give you grief for a few weeks to come. I'm going to prescribe some drugs for you, take all the antibiotics and the pain killers as long as you need them. For the graze on your abdomen the same regulations as for Williams, change the bandage regularly and keep it dry. For today I'm going to give you another shot of the good stuff; later today you need to start with the pills. Any questions?"

"No."

"Okay good then you're all good to go. Remember to take it easy for a few days. Commander you're also on restricted duty for the coming week."

"Will do," they're all saying their good bye to Lieutenant Commander Summers after she injected Steve with some more pain killers.

"I need to make two more stops before we leave," Steve's telling them when they're exiting the room.

"Where do you need to go?"

"You can wait down in the lobby for me I won't take long," with that he's going to one of the elevators.

"Where is he going?"

"Danny I'm not sure but I think he's going to see PO Miller," Cath is looking after her friend who's just stepping into the elevator.

H50 – H50 – H50

Captain Jordan, Cath and Danny are still sitting in the lobby next to the ER and are waiting for Steve to make an appearance. It's almost half an hour now that he left them to do whatever he wanted to do. They look up when they hear the ding of the elevator and see Steve emerging from it, he goes straight to the second waiting room that is separated by a glass wall from their waiting area. They can see him talking to a man in his mid-forties. They can't hear them but see the man shaking his head and stepping away from Steve. He's stretching out his hand to keep the man from completely turning. That seem to enrage the stranger even more, he turns back to Steve and pushes him against the wall and they can see that Steve is blanching, swallowing hard and seems to have some trouble to keep standing. By now JoJo is already entering the waiting area obviously knowing what's going on, they hear the end tail of the conversation between Steve and the distraught man.

". . . I'm very sorry for your loss Mister Mitchel. If I can do anything for you please let me know."

"YOU should have saved him, YOU were responsible for him and now he's dead because of you," Tom Mitchel is by now in tears, he just learned that his friend, his life-partner was dead, "He was so scared to go on this training, it was the first time that he went after he came out. He thought that everyone would know and avoid him."

"Your friend was a very brave man and no one cared about anything else Mr. Mitchel. He died saving lives."

"Thank you Commander. I'm sorry I hit you. Can I be alone please?"

"Yes of course. And again I'm truly sorry for your loss, please let me know if I can help you with anything."

Steve is turning to his friends, pain clearly written on his face and it's clear to them that it's as much physical pain from being shoved against the wall as it is emotional pain from having to tell someone that he lost a loved one.

"Steve you all right," JoJo is softly asking.

"Yeah I'm good. JoJo can you talk to Mr. Mitchel, PO Sandburn was his partner, he died ten minutes ago."

"I'll take care of him, you should go home," JoJo is looking at Cath to make sure that he gets home soon.

"Come on Steve let's get home and you two boys in bed at least for a couple of hours," Cath is gently guiding her boyfriend to the entrance.

"I'm not going to bed and I'm sure Danny isn't either. We're not five year old's," that came out a lot harsher than he intended, "Sorry."

"It's okay. You both need to rest a little, get a change of clothes, come to terms with what happened. Get something to eat and do you need to give a statement today?"

"No that can wait till tomorrow, Chin and Kono have that covered. Steve I think Cath is right, besides we have a party to attend later, remember?"

"Danny I'm not in the mood to celebrate, one of my men just died and another is in the ICU," he learned that Miller suffered a stroke during the HALO jump and might still lose his leg if he survives. They haven't figured out yet why he had a stroke in the first place.

"I know babe, but that was not your fault. And you don't have to _party_, but we will come together and we will celebrate your birthday. Quite frankly you were so damn lucky today that we really can celebrate your second birthday today. We will remember PO Sandburn but you know as well as I do that life goes on and it's not getting better by sitting in your room and wallowing about what happened."

Steve allows a small smile to creep onto his face, "you're right, let's get home and cleaned up I can really use a shower. Danny."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks man."

"You're welcome. Can you swing by my apartment and pick me up later?"

"Danny we're not leaving you alone, you're coming with us."

"Cath I'm fine, I'll spend the night at your house, but for a couple hours I'll be fine on my own," Danny wants to give his friends a few hours alone time and he wants to shower and change at his own place.

"Okay fine but don't get your bandage wet and I'm going to pick you up in three hours."

"Fine, now let's go before SuperSEAL falls asleep standing up."

"Huh?"

It seems that the events of the last thirty six hours are finally catching up to Steve who looks like he could drop right there on the spot.

"Come on Steve. We already filled your prescription so we can go straight home," Cath is leading her two friends out of the base hospital to get them home.

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><em><strong>Hope you enjoyed it. Are they finally going to make it to the party? We'll see.<strong>_

**Chapter 09**

After dropping Danny off at his place Catherine is pulling into the driveway, kills the engine and turns to her boyfriend in the passenger seat. He nodded off a couple minutes ago no longer able to stay awake with all the pain killers floating in his system and after the long days behind him.

For a minute she is just watching him, the gentle rise and fall of his chest and the relaxed features of his face.

"It's not polite to watch someone sleep," a soft voice comes from the 'sleeping' form.

"I thought you nodded off."

"I did, guess the not-moving woke me."

"We should go inside."

"Yeah we should," but Steve's not making any move to do so, he's not even opening his eyes.

"How do you feel?"

"Not feeling much of anything right now, they _really_ doped me up," he's finally looking at her with sleepy eyes but a smile on his face.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 09**

After dropping Danny off at his place Catherine is pulling into the driveway, kills the engine and turns to her boyfriend in the passenger seat. He nodded off a couple minutes ago no longer able to stay awake with all the pain killers floating in his system and after the long days behind him.

For a minute she is just watching him, the gentle rise and fall of his chest and the relaxed features of his face.

"It's not polite to watch someone sleep," a soft voice comes from the 'sleeping' form.

"I thought you nodded off."

"I did, guess the not-moving woke me."

"We should go inside."

"Yeah we should," but Steve's not making any move to do so, he's not even opening his eyes.

"How do you feel?"

"Not feeling much of anything right now, they _really_ doped me up," he's finally looking at her with sleepy eyes but a smile on his face.

"You think you can make it inside?"

"Hmmm," he's opening the door and starts to get out of the seat, wincing when he twists his body.

"Wait, let me help you, don't be so stubborn all the time," Cath hurries to get to his side of the Silverado.

When she reaches him he's already standing next to the car and tries to get the kinks out of his back, perfectly knowing that it's a futile attempt. His back already started to seize up on him and he knows that it's only going to get worse. The pain meds he received are doing a great job and only some movements are hurting right now.

"You all right?"

He's not answering but uses his arm currently not in a sling to get her closer and engages her in a sweet kiss, "love you Cath."

"You know I think I really like you doped up like this," she's smiling against his lips "and I love you too."

They make their way into the house and Steve zeros in onto the couch, "Oh no Mister you are going to take a shower first. I hate to tell you but you stink of mud and forest and I don't even want to know what else."

"What you don't like the earthy smell?"

"Not particularly, no. Come on I help you up the stairs and out of your clothes."

"Uh I like the sound of that. It's my birthday after all and I didn't get a birthday gift yet," he's smirking at Cath, thinking about what he wanted to do this morning and is actually surprised that other parts of his body like that idea too.

"I don't think you're in any shape to do what you're just thinking."

"You'd be surprised what I can do."

"Well in that case Commander, by all means surprise me," she's grinning at him and steers him to the stairs he's eying with a little apprehension. But the climb up the stairs goes better than anticipated and a minute later he's sitting on the edge of the bed letting Cath take his clothes off.

She starts with his boots, the only part of clothes that is actually his. Next the socks are gone, "Do you want to keep the brace on?"

"No."

Cath carefully takes the brace off and gently massages the slightly swollen ankle, "Does it hurt?"

"No."

Cath is grinning to herself, she knows what she's doing to him right now. "Can you get up for a minute?" She helps him to a standing position and puts her hands gently on his hips and lets her hands travel to his belt buckle. She's deliberately fumbling with the buckle and the button of his pants, after finally done with that she very slowly pulls the zipper down. 'Accidently' brushing against his arousal, which elicits a soft moan and widens her grin even more. "You may sit back down," she gently pushes him back onto the mattress. His pants are now around his ankles and she's silently laughing at the white boxer briefs with little hearts on them, not standard Navy issue underwear. For a moment she wonders who provided those when he got dry clothes back at the base clinic.

She's looking down at her friend, who's very slightly trembling, not from cold or pain but from anticipation what's to come. He's giving her complete control, something she cherishes very much, since it's such a struggle for him to give up any form of control.

"I'm going to take your arm out of the sling, okay?"

He's only nodding and Cath is opening the fastener of the sling and carefully takes it off. Steve is automatically holding his left arm up with his right one but Cath is lowering the arm into his lap, "I need to unbutton your shirt, you doing okay?"

"Yeah."

Before she starts with his shirt she's kissing her way around the cut over his eye all the way down to his lips, which he eagerly opens.

"Nonono, not yet," that actually brings out a rather frustrated moan from her injured friend.

She slowly starts to open the buttons on his shirt and every patch of skin behind one opened button after the other gets the treatment of a kiss. Which drives Steve kind of crazy, seems that he likes to further this along. But she's taking her sweet time to undress him. She eases his right arm out of the sleeve and very gently takes the rest of the shirt off, careful not to jostle his left shoulder. Finally free of almost all clothes she gets a good look at all the bruises muddling his skin. She sucks in her breath when she sees the dark bruising on his back, that must hurt badly.

"It doesn't right now," Steve tells her like he could read her mind, "but you could kiss it better."

She doesn't need to be told twice and grazes every bruise with feather light kisses, when she's finally back in front of him, standing between his legs in front of the bed, he's grabbing her and pulls her down to his level. She's too surprised to stop him from falling back and taking her with him. She lands on top of him and can hear him hissing in pain when his back hits the mattress and she lands somewhat on his shoulder. She's trying to take her weight off of him but is held in place by Steve's arm around her waist, "Stay."

"You're hurting."

"Not much," he mumbles into the kiss that he's just deepening. "You're way overdressed Lieutenant."

"Oh really?"

"Uh hu," coherent words are not in Steve's vocabulary right now while his girlfriend is wiggling down on him to take at least a little weight off of his upper body to settle more on his lower half.

"What you're doing," Cath is laughing at his attempt to pull her blouse out of her pants.

"Argh," not a good idea to use the left arm.

"Don't do that, lean back and just breathe," Cath is stroking his forehead when he clenches his eyes shut in obvious pain after he lifted his arm to pull her shirt over her head. She's now doubting that this is such a good idea after all but can also feel that Steve's still ready to go even more so than just a few minutes ago and the pain doesn't seem to change that.

Her qualms fly out the window when he's pulling her back on top of him and engages again in one of his mind-blowing kisses. After that she's the one that's losing control and it's a long time later that they are lying on the bed, next to each other heavily breathing and making no move to finally taking that shower they came upstairs for in the first place.

"That was a pretty amazing gift, thank you."

"Sorry I hurt you."

"I'm not complaining, but I don't think I'm going to move any time soon."

"Steve you okay?"

"Fine."

"Steve please be serious."

"I'm kinda sore," he's grinning at her.

"You're not funny you know. Come on we need to get a move on, I need to pick up Danny soon and you NEED a shower."

"Join me?"

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope, must be the drugs."

"Well in that case take a cold shower."

"You're cruel. What happened to a little TLC for the wounded?"

"Speaking of wound don't get the graze wet, is the patch water proof? Let me see," she's looking at the only fabric on his body. "Steve there's a little blood I hope we didn't pull any stitches." Cath is swiftly pulling the patch off which again let's Steve hiss in pain. "Looks good, wait here I'm going to get a water proof patch." She gets off the bed, throws a sheet over her boyfriend and grabs some of her clothes off the floor on her way to the bathroom to get some medical supplies.

When she comes back she has to smile, Steve dozed off again. Looks like the shower has to wait a little longer. She's putting a new patch on the small graze on his abdomen, for which he doesn't even stir. After that it's shower time at least for her, she's going to give Steve a few minutes before she will get him to clean up.

H50 – H50 – H50

Danny Williams is looking in the mirror in his bathroom. He's seeing all the lacerations on his chest from the brushes he crawled through, he's angry at the doctor in the ER who shaved a small patch of skin to put two stitches on one of the deeper cuts. It looks ridiculous, not that anyone will see it, with him just recently out of a girlfriend and an ex-wife. _Let's not go there_. But mostly he's angry at himself, because of him his best friend got hurt again. Yes logically he knows that it is not his fault, but that doesn't help much with the guilt. If his stupid plan for the party didn't go so much out of hand, his friend would be at home, enjoying his girlfriend's company. _Don't go there either_. _Knowing them they will probably enjoy themselves right about now anyway._

He screwed up. Plain and simple. And pulled every one down with him. Danny is putting some shaving creme on his face and starts to get rid of the stubble of the last three days. That's a task that needs no brain power at all so his thoughts stray back to the time in the jungle. He's again thinking about the sight of Steve in full combat gear, something he's never seen before and he's thinking about Jenny's words that they haven't seen Steve the SEAL yet. Now he gets an idea about what he meant with that.

To see those guys blending perfectly into their environment was kind of scary. He remembers the saying if it gets tough get the SEAL's, or was that for the Marines? Well whatever, he has a small idea about the things his friend did for a living all those years. In the beginning of their partnership he thought that Steve's just an arrogant asshole, who knows everything. And can do everything better than anyone else. It took him only a short while to learn that Steve's not arrogant at all, that he's just confident and for a good reason. Steve knows what he's capable of and is not taking shit from anyone.

Danny has to laugh a little, yeah as much as Steve's confident about his ability to get the job done, and he's yet to fail to do so, he's just a wreck in the mammal to mammal stuff. He still struggles with the concept that people love him just because he's. . .well him. Steve is fiercely loyal and in the beginning it hurt a little to see that he's struggling with the fact that others might be the same. Steve still thinks sometimes that he's not worth the love he receives from others. _Moron!_

Danny knows that his friend trusts him completely with body and soul. He confides in him in a matter Danny never thought possible in the beginning of their partnership. That is why Danny feels so shitty about letting Steve think that he wouldn't be there for him on his birthday. Oh Danny gets angry at him, spitting mad actually on occasion, but he never ever stopped loving that big goof even more like his own siblings.

He knows without a doubt that he would go to the end of the world to safe him, just as he knows that Steve wouldn't leave a stone unturned if he would ever go missing. That Steve too would do anything in his power and probably even more to safe him. A resolution formed, to apologize for a fucked-up OP, _great now I'm using his terms_, he finishes shaving and gets dressed to get picked up by Catherine.

H50 – H50 – H50

Three hours after being dropped off Cath is picking him up and a short while later they enter Steve's home.

"Danny you like a soda," Cath is asking while on her way to the kitchen.

"A beer would be nice."

"Yeah it would be but no alcohol for you guys. You're on antibiotics, so your choice is soda, water or tea."

"Great. Do you have any juice?"

"Yeah when did you take your last dose, more than two hours ago?"

"At the hospital."

"Okay than juice it is. Danny can you check on Steve upstairs, see if he can come down?"

"Yeah on it."

Danny makes his way to the upper floor and peeks into the master bedroom. His friend is sprawled on the bed, fast asleep but fully dressed in jeans and t-shirt and it's obvious that he took a shower. His left arm is bent on his chest, propped up by a pillow by his side so that it's not slipping down since he's not wearing the sling.

Completely relaxed without a worry in the world Steve looks a lot younger than his age. Danny sits down on the edge of the bed that dips and lets his friend stir a little.

"Steve?"

"Hmmm."

"You awake?"

"I am now," he's opening his eyes and looks at Danny. "How you're doing Danny? How's your head?"

"Good. I'm good Steven, now listen. . ."

"Danny. Thank you."

"What?"

"Thank you for going through all that trouble for me. Cath told me that you were behind this idea for the party. Thank you my friend, nobody ever did that for me."

"Steve stop, I came here to apologize."

"For what?"

"For screwing everything up, for leaving you alone on your birthday, for. . ."

"Danny! YOU didn't screw up anything. I'm the one who should have invited all of you to a party. I'm an idiot when it comes to that stuff and I'm sorry. I should have handled this better, I should have asked you directly if you want to spend my birthday with me. AND I should have seen that something was up, I mean you guys were not very subtle."

"Yeah well we kind of outsmarted you," Danny is now grinning.

"Well I wouldn't say outsmarted, okay yeah you got me."

"Come on we need to get going soon, or you'd be really late for your own party. Can you get up?"

"Give me a hand?"

Together they manage to get Steve into an upright position, Danny helps him to put a button down shirt over his t-shirt and gently puts his arm back into the sling. Not an easy task since Danny's arm is smarting pretty fiercely with every movement, but he was too stubborn to use the sling. After that is done Steve visibly relaxes.

"Your shoulder hurts?"

"Movement hurts like a bitch the pain killers are wearing off, but it's not a serious injury Danny, I'll be fine."

"How's your back?"

"A constant ache with some serious twinge when I twist or turn but that will also heal in a couple of weeks. Will ache a bit for a few more weeks, but I'll be fine."

"You were damn lucky."

"I know."

They are leaving the bedroom and Steve is stopping at the top of the stairs, knowing that the steps leading down may be a challenge.

"Come on take it slow one step at a time."

The way down is more painful than the way up, every step sends a little dagger of pain up his spine but in the end he makes it down the stairs on his own. Cath is waiting for them with Danny's juice and a bottle of water and two pain pills for Steve.

"Okay guys let's go, we still have a party to attend."

It's only a few minutes later that they leave the house to finally start Steve's birthday celebrations.

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><strong><em>Thanks again so much for reading. Sorry this one was a little short, next one is a long one again. Promise.<em>**

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><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

„Danny do we need to swing by Rachel's and pick up Grace," Steve is looking at his friend who's just getting into the Silverado.

"No, Rachel said she would bring her by. I told her she's welcome to stay if she wants to but I doubt she will."

"Oh okay. Are you going to tell me where we're going?"

"Nope, remember this is a surprise party."

"Never liked surprises," Steve is mumbling under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Don't let Gracie hear you say that."

"Say what?"

Danny is turning around and looks at his friend in the back seat, "Steve just relax, you look like you're expecting to get ambushed in the next second. You're going to meet with friends, not foes." Danny has to laugh a little at his friend who seems to get more anxious the closer they get to the Hilton.


	10. Chapter 10

_**I'm so sorry for the delay with the last three chapters but you know how RL sometimes is. I hope you will enjoy this chapter.**_

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><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

„Danny do we need to swing by Rachel's and pick up Grace," Steve is looking at his friend who's just getting into the Silverado.

"No, Rachel said she would bring her by. I told her she's welcome to stay if she wants to but I doubt she will."

"Oh okay. Are you going to tell me where we're going?"

"Nope, remember this is a surprise party."

"Never liked surprises," Steve is mumbling under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Don't let Gracie hear you say that."

"Say what?"

Danny is turning around and looks at his friend in the back seat, "Steve just relax, you look like you're expecting to get ambushed in the next second. You're going to meet with friends not foes." Danny has to laugh a little at his friend who seems to get more anxious the closer they get to the Hilton.

"I _am_ relaxed."

"Sure you are. Are your SEAL buddies coming, did you invite them?"

"Vance and Mick are coming, well at least if Cath told them where to come to, since I don't know," he's accusingly looking at Danny. "Mick will bring his three kids, they're nine, twelve and sixteen. Butler couldn't come he's to meet with his team and Vance will bring his wife. I hope six more people won't be a problem?"

"No that's fine don't worry."

"Will JoJo be there?"

"What kind of stupid question is that? She's one of your oldest friends, she's here on the island, so what do you think are the odds that she might like to come to your party," Danny is just shaking his head at his friend.

"So she'll be there or what?"

Danny is looking at Steve and is just ready to give him a piece of his mind when he sees the grin and realizes that Steve's just messing with him, "oh you're hilarious Steven."

Steve's not saying anything but just looks at his friend, he asked him earlier if his head was bothering him but Danny didn't give him a straight answer. So now he tries to figure out if he's still having the headache from hell or not. He seems fine but Steve knows his friend pretty well and can see that he's squinting from time to time and he can see the fine pain lines on his forehead. Danny won't admit it, but Steve knows that even though he only suffered a rather mild to moderate concussing that he's hurting. Steve will make sure that his friend is not overdoing it tonight and will get the rest he needs.

Danny is doing some checking himself, he watched his friend closely since they left his house. Steve's not saying anything but Danny knows that he's hurting big time even with the pain killers in his system. He can see that he's holding himself rather stiffly upright, a sure sign that his back is giving him trouble. Danny's pretty sure that his lower back is killing him and he's adamant to make sure that he won't overdo it tonight and that he gets the rest he needs.

If they would know what the other is thinking they would laugh about the similar thoughts.

Fifteen minutes later they're making their way through the Hilton to the area that is reserved for the 'McGarrett-Party'. It's a rather large portion of the village that is reserved for the festivities of a birthday-party for a certain member of the ohana that is already gathered there. A short distance away Steve stops in his tracks and looks with such astonishment at the people attending his party that Danny and Cath can't suppress the laugh that is bubbling up.

"What the. . .how did. . .I," Steve's completely and totally overwhelmed by what he sees. He can't believe his friends pulled this off, there are friends of his mingling around he hasn't seen in years. His emotions are threatening to get the better of him, he's clearing his throat and whispers a thank you. "Thank you Danny, Cath I don't know what to say, I. . ."

"You don't have to say anything, it was our pleasure. Come on don't keep them waiting any longer," Danny is gently steering his friend to greet his party guests.

H50 – H50 – H50

It's an hour later that Steve is coming back from his first tour around the premises as he likes to call it. It took almost an hour to greet every single one of his guests, of course his half hour stay with his buddies from Annapolis might have something to do with it. His second room-mate after Tim died, Billy came all the way to see him and he brought two of his closest friends outside of his ohana and Jenny with him.

He gingerly sits down at the table and is looking for Grace who disappeared with Mick's kids to the table where Dustin is sitting. He always knew how to entertain kids and adults alike with his magic tricks. Steve's grinning at Danny, "wouldn't be surprised if she's having her first crush."

Danny's looking over to Dustin who's just doing a card trick and everyone's watching mesmerized, "too late my friend, my daughter already has a huge crush on someone and I highly doubt that magic will do anything to give her heart to another guy." Danny doesn't sound very happy.

"What she's still into that Bieber kid?"

"Yeah that too, but her crush is way closer to home. It's a secret I can't tell you, she would be mortified if you would know."

"Huh?"

"It's a phase and she will get over it, I hope," Danny's really not happy about his daughter's taste in men. Couldn't she fall for a little boy in her class? No it must be his partner who's totally oblivious to it. "Here she comes, act normal."

"Act normal? What are you talking about, I always act normal," Steve is muttering and has no clue what his partner is talking about. "Gracie how did you like Dustin?"

"He was okay."

"Gracie your dad told me that you put a lot of work into this party and I like to thank you for all that you did. You made me really very happy. Thank you," he's looking at the blushing little girl and her frowning father. _What did I do now?_ Steve has no idea why his friend is looking at him like that. He's stretching his hand out to Gracie and gently pulls her in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek like they did hundreds of times before. But this time little Gracie is blushing even more and her father is face-palming.

"You're welcome Uncle Steve," Grace tells him shyly and runs back to her new friends at Dustin's table.

"What," he's looking at Catherine and Danny in complete confusion, Danny's still frowning and Cath is chuckling.

"So when are we gonna hear some embarrassing stories from one of your friends," Danny is changing the topic of their conversation.

"Never Danny, remember it's classified."

"Oh I don't know about that Doggie I might be able to remember the one or other story at a later hour," Jenny is grinning from ear to ear. "Mexico comes to mind."

Now Steve is the one face-palming.

"What happened in Mexico," Chin and Kono are asking at the same time, they are more than eager to hear more about their boss.

"Okay I tell you what happened," Jenny is looking at his friend to see if it's okay to tell, but Steve is leaning back and smiles at him, the signal for him to go for it. "It was after Hell-Week, we were still pretty groggy but Doggie thought it would be a good idea to celebrate that we made it through. So first opportunity we got we left the base. Doggie here had a plan, a brilliant one actually, he got us, that are Pete, Doggy, Storm and myself on the list for inoculation, I don't even remember for what. The thing about that is you get 48 hours off after the injections. Good plan right? We get a little injection and have two days of free time. So we all did that and a couple hours later we were in Mexico. At first everything was great, we had a lot of fun. But you see there is a reason that you get the 48 hours off, there can be side effects that are not so much fun."

Doctor Jordan is already snickering because she knows where this is most likely going, "don't tell me you drank alcohol?"

"What's the fun in celebrating in Mexico if you don't have alcohol? To put it nicely, we were hammered really fast. Doggie was a goner after just a couple Tequila that's when we realized that something was not right, because Doggie here can hold his liquor. I guess none of you ever saw Steve drunk? Right, he never gets drunk in public and very rarely in private if at all. But I can tell you Doggie is the funniest and nicest drunk you ever encounter. Only problem is he won't shut up. That man can talk you won't believe it."

Steve is by now a nice shade of red and the story hasn't even reached the embarrassing part.

"Anyway, we're all not really fresh anymore but Steve is 'really' drunk. Since drunks are not known for their sound decisions we decided it would be a great idea to get something to eat. So we went to some nice enough looking restaurant, not knowing what kind of establishment that was. I swear we had no idea. So we went in and they only had women as waitresses, it was kind of strange that they were not wearing so much but hey it was warm," Jenny is looking around and can see that everyone at the table is grinning, even Col. Zane who's here with Mark Hope.

"As you probably already guessed that was no restaurant and when Steve asked what's on the menu one of the women whispered something in his ear. I'm telling you I've never seen anyone getting that red in a second flat. You never told me what she said," he's looking at his friend.

"And I'm not going to," Jenny doesn't need to know that Steve has no idea what that women told him.

"Anyway Steve tried to get up after that but instead fell face first on the table and was out like a light. Someone screamed police and we took off as fast as we could with the dead weight of Doggie between us. We had to go back to the base and we were on a deadline, we had to be there before 22.00 hours or we would be dead meat. Leaving the base was not okay but coming back after hours, that would be really bad, I mean really bad. Somehow we made it back undetected, no thanks to Doggie who was still out."

"So you guys got away unpunished and just with a hangover," Col. Zane is asking.

"No ma'am. We got punished, but not like you might think. Steve scared the shit out of us the next morning."

"How so," Danny wants to know.

"He didn't wake up. We couldn't wake him. We got really scared when we realized that he was not sleeping but that he passed out in Mexico and was still unresponsive. That was suddenly no joke anymore but deadly serious, we called it in right away and told the doctor where we were and what we did, what kind of drinks we had. Steve had a reaction to the vaccination that combined with alcohol was not such a great thing. Finally twelve hours later he woke up, perfectly fine. Not even a hangover you bastard," he's smiling when he's saying it.

"What was your punishment?"

"We were called to our CO and my ears were ringing for a few days after that. We were dismissed except for Steve he had to stay, you never told us what he wanted from you after the dressing down," he's addressing Steve who looks rather sad.

Steve never told anyone, not even Cath but for some reason he thinks it's the right time to tell what kind of consequences he had to endure because of his stupid idea, "he informed me that I would be missing out on meeting with my dad who came to see me for the weekend. Normally I would be on leave but that was revoked and I was not allowed to leave or get visitors. It was the first time that my dad came to the mainland to see me since I left the islands and I blew it."

"Shit Steve I didn't know. I'm sorry man."

"It's not your fault Jenny, it was my own stupidity that prevented me from seeing my dad."

"Wait a minute," Danny is still trying to catch up, "your dad flew all those miles to see his son and the Navy didn't allow you to see him? Can they do that?"

"Danny we broke the rules, we endangered ourselves. To revoke all privileges for four weeks was a very mild punishment for what we did. We got away easy. It's very unfortunate that my dad was there that weekend or Cath two weeks later, but there are no exceptions to the ruling."

"So that is why we couldn't meet, because you got drunk in some 'establishment' in Mexico. Nice move sailor," Cath is laughing at Steve but squeezes his hand under the table. She knows what it means to him to have missed out on that meeting with his dad.

After a few more minutes Steve excuses himself again and goes to mingle with some of his other friends again.

H50 – H50 – H50

Steve is looking around him and still can't quite believe how his friends pulled all this off, he talked to all his friends in the last two hours and he just sat down a little out of the way to get a few minutes to himself. He's smiling at Cath who is looking at him with worry clearly written on her face, well he can't blame her; his appearance is rather pitiful. His left arm is in a sling because of the separated shoulder which thankfully is not as bad as first feared, his face is showing some nice bruises by now and his right leg is outstretched in front of him resting on a second chair. Of course no one can see the contusions on his back but Cath knows that they are there and she already kissed them a little better. Well she kissed a lot of stuff better, not just his bruises.

He knows that he won't last for that much longer, it's already a struggle to keep his eyes open. His last two days were not really a picnic and the painkillers he took are not helping to keep him awake. But they manage to keep the pain in check and he's actually feeling pretty good if he weren't so damn tired he would even enjoy his own party.

Cath is coming over to him, bents down and gently kisses him, careful of the split lip, "you wanna go home?"

"No not yet," he's pulling her down for another kiss that lasts a little longer, "thank you. For all of this."

"It was actually Danny's idea. Steve I'm so sorry that it got a little out of hand, we didn't mean for you to feel alone. Somehow it developed a dynamic of its own and it kind of got away from us."

"Hey it's okay, don't worry about it."

"But I do because I love you and I don't want you to ever feel alone or that you can't share something with me."

Steve is looking at her and doesn't know what to say, but Cath just smiles at him, gives him another kiss and goes to mingle with the guests again. He's looking after her and remembers that they will have the next weekend just for themselves. Hopefully his shoulder will be a lot better by then and he will be able to do what he has planned.

Steve feels the tiredness creeping up on him, he's now awake for almost forty hours. And he spent most of that time with heavy activity; swimming in the ocean, traipsing through the jungle and jumping out of planes is not really that relaxing. Besides his whole body is aching, not really hurting that will come later, but he's feeling every single bone and muscle. His lower back is the worst, it feels like all his back muscles seized up on him and some movements send a sharp pain not just through his back but all the way down his right leg. Completely standing up is not possible at the moment but it's still better than sitting down all the time, that's why he abandoned the chair a couple minutes ago. He learned that besides from a heavily compressed spine he also suffered a ruptured disk, which is now pressing on the nerves which is causing the severe pain. But he's in luck there's no loss of function of any organs or any numbness or tingling, the tear is rather small and he should be fine with some rest and physical therapy.

He's looking around and has to smile as the people storm the buffet as if they haven't eaten in a week. As soon as it was announced that the food would be ready they moved like a flock of sheep on the run. It was actually a pretty funny spectacle, one he watched from a little distance. Just enjoying the sight of his friends, some of them he hasn't seen in years.

His smile is even growing when he sees a man coming his way. In the last few months he was not sure to see him ever walk again. He visited him a couple of times, but hasn't seen him in three month.

"Philip, it's so good to see you. How are you," Steve is hugging his former nurse.

"Happy. . .birthday Steve," Philip is grinning at him. "You. . .need. . .a nurse. . .again?"

Philip came a long way, even though his speech is still greatly impaired and one has to listen very carefully to understand him. But he can finally stand and walk again, still a little unsteady and his right leg won't obey like he wants it to, but with some more training he will overcome that. When he woke up from the coma so many months ago he couldn't talk or move at all. He had to learn most everything anew, but as soon as he started to get therapy he made incredible progress.

"Na I'm good, nothing too serious. Is your wife here Philip?"

"No, this is. . .the first time I'm out alone."

"That's great. Please say hi to your wife from me. So how are you doing?"

"Every day a little. . .better. Thank you. . .for inviting me. . .your friends said you'd be happy to see me."

"I'm very happy to see you. Philip I'm very sorry that you got hurt because of me, I wish I could do something more for you. If you ever need a favor, just ask."

"I will. Thank you Steve. And it was. . .not your fault. Are you feeling okay? Maybe. . .you should sit down Steve."

Steve has to laugh a little, here's his former nurse, challenged in the most horrible way but still only concerned for him, "I'm good Philip, I'm just tired and my back is not so great. So tell me how much longer you're going to be in therapy?"

"Well that depends, my motor-functions need to improve some more, my right leg is still not working properly and as you can hear my speech is very irregular. Sometimes like now I can speak without problem, not clear enough for everyone to understand me but the words at least are coming out of my mouth."

"I'm sure that will improve with time Philip. You made such great progress. I'm sorry I didn't come see you more often."

"No that's okay, it's quite a. . .trip to. . .the Big Island and you were hurt badly yourself."

"You're still in that clinic for the therapy?"

"Yeah the Governor organized that, Maddy is due in two weeks and we're staying with her parents for the time being."

"You have any idea what you're going to do later?"

"Yeah, your friend Dr. Jordan is looking into some programs for me so that I can work later in rehab. She thinks I might be good for people with head trauma like myself. But that's a long way from now until I can even start the program. But I think I would like something like that."

"I'm sure JoJo will find the right thing for you, she's great like that."

"Speaking of the devil, Dr. Jordan nice. . .to see you."

"Philip so good to see you on your feet," JoJo is greeting the young man who overcame so much but still has some way to go.

"I'll leave you two alone and go mingle with the people, promised my wife to meet someone new tonight," he laughs at their questioning faces. "She thinks one should meet a new friend on an event like this. She says there are best friends out there we haven't met yet."

"Well then good luck," she's looking after this incredible young man, through all what he's facing he has never lost his uplifting spirit. "Steve you look tired, you feel okay?"

"Yeah I'm good just needed a little breather, it's a little overwhelming."

"That I can understand. Your friends pulled something really great off, I just spoke to Billy, did you know that he's back at the academy and has a teaching position?"

"Yeah after he busted his knee they offered him the position, I'm sorry JoJo can we go and sit down for a few minutes?"

"Of course, you wanna go back to the table?"

"No not yet, let's sit over there," Steve is slowly making his way over to some benches a little away from the activity and the noise of the party. He's sitting down on one of them, thankful to be off his feet again even though his back is not hurting less while sitting.

"How is Tom Mitchel?"

"Not very good. Before I left his sister came and he went with her, but I'm afraid he's not coping well at all. He and Sandburn were friends since Elementary school, they were together for almost their entire life. They lived together for the last ten years but just a month ago Sandburn changed his status with the Navy, he was very scared about it."

"I knew his behavior was somewhat off, he was preoccupied that's why I wanted him to get out of the field with us. I thought he'd be safer that way. That's what got him killed."

"No Steve the bullets of the drug runners is what got him killed, not your decision to take him off the mission. I'm sure the inquiry panel will come to the same conclusion that you're not to blame for his death."

"I know JoJo and don't worry I'm not on a guilt trip about it. I know it was not my fault but he still died under my command, he was my responsibility. And I take it very personally if one of my men gets hurt or killed."

They both fall silent for a couple of minutes and watch the party, they're all busy with raiding the buffet. They can see the table of Five-0 that is filled up with Carl Jennings and his wife and of course Grace who looks very proud to sit with the grown ups.

"Are you mad at them?"

"What? Mad at whom?"

"Your friends, for keeping the truth from you, making you believe that they were busy on your birthday."

"At first I was mostly hurt that they didn't have time for me, but then I realized that it was my own fault, I never asked them to spend my 'birthday' with me. I should have seen that they were acting strange, but I was totally blind to all of it. In hindsight it is actually quite embarrassing that I didn't catch on, not my best detective work. But no I'm not mad at them, they had a really good idea, it just got a little out of hand. Letting Cath tell me that she would be gone the whole weekend was a little cruel though and totally screwed with my plans."

"Your plans?"

"Yeah I wanted to take her to the Big Island for a get-away, you know, just the two of us."

"Oh so you had a little surprise of yourself going. Did you cancel it?"

"No I just switched it to next week. I hope my shoulder is better by then so that I can fly."

"Let me know if you can't, I'm sure Tommy will be happy to fly you guys."

"He's on leave?"

"Yeah next three weeks."

"That's great. Can you ask him if he would fly us, the helicopter is booked for the weekend he could use it for a tour if he wants to."

"I'm sure he would love to impress his new girlfriend."

"Another one?"

"Seems serious this time, he even introduced us."

"Well it's about time," every time JoJo was talking about her middle son, he had a new girlfriend of the month. He's a helicopter pilot with the resupply station down at pearl that's flying personal and supplies to the ships in the area around the islands.

"Now he hopes to be stationed here for a little longer. But of course there are no guarantees for that."

"Yeah tell me about it. I hope that Cath will be able to stay. I don't want her to leave again."

"Hear hear, well good for you Steve," she is looking at him and can see the pain underneath his smile. "Your back is getting worse, isn't it?"

"No it's my head. It started a few minutes ago, it's really throbbing and I'm a little lightheaded."

"Steve when did you last eat?"

"Not sure, I think this morning, I think I'm hungry."

"Yeah I'd say, come on let's get you something to eat, before they completely scarf-up the buffet."

JoJo helps her friend up and leads him back to his friends where he's greeted enthusiastically by Grace, "Uncle Steve I was missing you, where have you been?"

"Just got some fresh air Gracie. You want to take me to the buffet and show me what's good?"

"Uncle Steve they have really great ice creme and a chocolate volcano, you have to try that."

"Yeah well maybe we start with some real food first."

"They don't have any seeds or green stuff here Uncle Steve, only good tasting food," she's taking his hand and practically drags him to the huge buffet to show him all her favorite foods.

And as always Grace is talking his ear off, not so great for his increasing headache but he doesn't have the heart to tell her to tone it down a little. Besides he will feel better after he has some food into him. He's sure of it.

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><em><strong>Thank you all so much for reading and for your continuous support. Some of you have pm disabled so I can't thank you for your review personally but I appreciate every single one.<strong>_

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><p><em><strong>And as always a little sneak peek into the next chapter that will be posted tomorrow.<strong>_

**Chapter 11**

It's another hour later that Steve can finally take another dose of his pain pills. He hopes that they will help with the agony that took residency in his lower back. After he ate something and had more water his headache is somewhat better, but it's still throbbing pretty badly. He made another round and talked some more to his friends who are still enjoying the festivities. Most of them were able to combine the party with some vacation time and will be on the island for another week, so he will be seeing them all again in the next days. Which is good since he's not really a good host at the moment, he's tired and the pain he's in keeps him from mingling with the guests more than the cares to admit.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

It's another hour later that Steve can finally take another dose of his pain pills. He hopes that they'll help with the agony that took residence in his lower back. After he ate something and had more water his headache is somewhat better but it's still throbbing pretty badly. He made another round and talked some more to his friends who are still enjoying the festivities. Most of them were able to combine the party with some vacation time and will be on the island for another week, so he will be seeing them again in the next days. Which is good since he's not really a good host at the moment; he's tired and the pain he's in keeps him from mingling with the guests more than the cares to admit.

"Steve are you okay, you're suddenly limping," Mark Hope is asking him after he followed him to the restrooms. Mark didn't like at all what he saw when he took a closer look at Steve a few minutes ago and decided to follow him.

Steve is leaning against one of the sinks after he just swallowed two of his prescription pills, waiting for the pain in his back to subside. Before that he followed the call of nature and was more than relieved that he had no problems whatsoever. He turns to Mark and tries to put a smile on, of course Mark knows him too well to not see right through him, "my back hurts and it's radiating down my leg, but I'm okay."

"Steve I'm a neurologist and I dealt with a lot of your kind of injuries, believe me I know you're not okay. So stop pretending and tell me what's wrong."

That actually brings a real smile to Steve's lips; he should have known better, "my leg feels kind of weird."

"How so?"

"I don't know. Weird. And there is this stabbing pain lancing down my leg with some movements."

"You have any tingling or numbness, any problems controlling your bladder?"

"No."

"Well without seeing your CT I can't say for sure but I think you're just suffering from the radiating pain of the ruptured disk. As long as you're not experiencing any other symptoms you don't have to worry too much. If you like you can come by tomorrow and we do an MRI see if we can do something more for you."

"You're at Queens in the afternoon?"

"Yeah I start at two pm, come by then and we do a check-up."

"Okay if I still feel like this in the morning I'll come see you. Thank you Mark."

"No problem. The pills working yet?"

"Somewhat."

"Good."

"Mark?"

"Yeah," Mark Hope is looking at his former or better future patient.

"Can I develop Post Concussive Syndrome without actually having a concussion?"

Dr. Hope is looking at Steve with a critical eye now and makes him sit down on one of the banks in the lobby they just reached after leaving the restroom area, "does your head hurt?"

"I hit my head this morning and was out for a few minutes, but my neuro check was fine and the pain was not so bad until a couple hours ago. It's really throbbing now, the pain meds are not doing much for it and I'm kind of dizzy."

"Did they do a CT of your head?"

"No. I didn't show any signs of a concussion, so no CT or MRI."

"Steve what did I tell you?"

"To call you after any loss of consciousness, but Mark I was in an ER and they have my medical records. I mean they know what they're doing, right?"

"I'm sure they do. When did you sleep last," he's asking Steve while he has the much hated pen-light out and is shining it into Steve's eyes.

"What's going on here, Steve are you okay," Cath was getting worried and went looking for her 'missing' boyfriend a few minutes ago.

"I'm fine just a headache."

"Mark?"

"Well he's not showing any signs of a concussion, but if he came into _my_ ER I would put him in an MRI."

"Okay then let's get him to the hospital."

"NO! _He_ is right here and you guys are overreacting. I have a headache, I didn't sleep much in over forty hours, I'm dead tired, I banged my head a little, my shoulder hurts like shit and my back is killing me, so excuse me if my head is hurting. I don't need to go to the hospital. This is exactly why I keep quiet when I'm hurting because everyone is making a mountain out of a molehill."

"_You_ asked me if you could get PCS without an actual concussion and that means that you're worried Steve."

"Of course I'm worried, you think I want to go through _that_ again? I don't but you're going all crazy about it."

"Steve we're not going crazy, we're just worried about you. And I can understand that Catherine wants you to go to Queens. But I think you're going to be okay. Listen let's all calm down a little. You come by tomorrow as we talked about and we're doing an MRI of your head _if_ you're still in pain then. That okay for you?"

"Yeah okay, fine."

"Cath don't worry, Steve is fine. Well as fine as he can be at the moment. There is no sign whatsoever that he has a brain injury of any kind. He's probably right; he's just having a bad headache."

They make their way back out to the guests and Cath and Steve are just back to their table when Billy joins them.

„Thank you for inviting me, you must be 'Awesome D' - I'm Billy," Billy Conroy is greeting Danny.

"Excuse me," Danny's looking over at Steve who is again face-palming, something he's doing quite a lot since some of his old friends are obviously taking a lot of joy out of embarrassing him any way they can.

"Oh that's just how we always refer to you when Doggie and I talk on the phone. You know like 'how's awesome D doing'."

"YOU refer to Danny like that, I don't do that," Steve think it necessary to clear that up.

"Yeah true, but you never said anything against it. Besides you gave him that name," Billy is now grinning from ear to ear.

"What? I did not."

"Sure you did. Remember the first phone call we had after you came to Hawaii? I thought something was seriously wrong with you. You were talking up a storm about your awesome new partner."

"I did not," but that comes out a lot quieter.

"Oh Billy please don't hold back tell us all about that conversation," Danny is now the one that is grinning.

"It was shortly before that disaster with Nick. We talked about all kinds of stuff when I asked him how his work with the task force is going. Boy I wish I didn't, for half an hour Doggie wouldn't shut up, I've never hear him praise people like he did with all of you but especially Danny. I didn't even know he knew so many adjectives. Smart, funny, clever, loyal, annoyingly talkative, stubborn, just to name a few, it was pretty clear that he really liked that guy. And he really surprised me by telling me that Danny is just an awesome partner all around. So awesome D was born."

"You think I'm awesome," Danny's looking at his partner who's again a nice shade of red to the amusement of his friends.

"I neither confirm nor deny that such a conversation ever took place."

"Oh very smooth Doggie."

"Yeah whatever," Steve's getting up before Billy can tell any more revealing stories while he sits there and has to listen to it. But he's smiling and doesn't really mind, because he really thinks that Danny is a pretty awesome detective and partner. "I'm going to see if I can find any other 'traitors' who like to rat me out."

He leaves a laughing table behind and makes his way over to Vance and Mick whose kids are still with Grace at the chocolate volcano; the most popular part of the buffet not just by the kids.

"Hey guys thank you for coming."

"Thanks for having us Sir," Vance is pulling back a chair for Steve to sit down.

"Vance we're not in uniform, remember it's Steve. Mrs. Vance it's a pleasure meeting you."

"Please call me Doris."

"Thank you," Steve's shaking her hand before carefully sitting down on the offered chair. "Mick I see your kids are having fun."

They all look over to the four youngsters at the buffet giggling and laughing about the bubbling chocolate.

"Guess it will not be easy to get them to bed tonight with all the sugar. But I'm really happy that they agreed to come with me, it's the first time that they came out after her mother died. It's hard without my wife but I think it's even harder on my kids."

"It's a shock at first but the most important part is that you're there for them," Steve is looking at Mick.

"I try to but it's really hard with Michael he was always the closest to his mom. He just turned twelve and sometimes I just don't know how to handle him. He's not talking much about it and I think he needs to."

"Talking about it makes it real, I guess he's still in denial, that his mom is just on vacation that she'll be back. Not talking about it means he doesn't need to deal with his emotions, but at some point he will break and then he will talk to you about it."

"You sound like you know something about it."

"My mother was killed when I was barely sixteen. It was really hard on my sister and me but I'm sure equally so on my dad. You lost your partner, don't downplay that. You need to grief too. Are you seeing a grief counselor?"

"No."

"Maybe you should. If you ever need one give me a call."

"Thank you maybe I will," Mick's looking at his temporary CO. "Commander Michaels told us that we have to report to base on Monday for debriefing and the inquiry panel."

"Yeah I know, don't worry I don't think that anyone is at fault for the casualties. I hope that Miller will make it, I called the hospital half an hour ago but they didn't know any more than last time. He's still in a coma."

"They said he had a stroke?"

"Yeah he had a massive blockage in his brain, they don't know why, he just had a physical and nothing indicated any problems. But I guess that can happen to anyone at any time."

"Makes you realize how fast one's life can change forever," Mrs. Vance is looking at the younger men and her husband. She had her share of near disasters, it's a given with a SEAL as a husband. She's grateful for every hour she can spend with him.

"Yes it does," Steve's looking at her, admiring her for her strength, he knows a lot of fellow SEALs whose marriage didn't survive the stress of a SEAL's life.

His gaze wanders over to his friend whose stressful job as a cop in New Jersey also added to the crumpling of his marriage. Steve sees that Gracie came over from the chocolate volcano and doesn't look very happy if her cute little pout is any indication. She is looking up at her Dad who seems to explain something to her, but it looks like she's not willing to accept what she's been told. Time for him to intervene since he's pretty sure what that little argument is about. Steve slowly gets up from his chair, excuses himself and makes his way carefully over to his friend.

He's pleasantly surprised about how little he's hurting, seems that the pills are finally doing their job again only his head and back are still throbbing, but his ankle and shoulder are just fine. He knows of course that come morning he will be in a world of hurt, when all his bruises had time to really settle in and the hospital grade painkillers are just a faded memory. His back will probably bother him for a few weeks to come and he'll be forced to use the brace again for a couple of weeks, but all things considered he got away pretty lucky. Not even his head is hurting as much as before so he feels confident that he'll be able to do what he's about to.

"Excuse me Miss Gracie, would you do me the honor and dance with me," Steve is smiling down at Danny's daughter whose face lights up by his words.

"It would be my pleasure Sir," Grace is looking at her dad with the look of 'Told you he'd dance with me' clearly written on her face.

Danny is just shaking his head and watches his daughter hook her arm into Steve's and watches them both march off to the dance-floor.

"Gracie I think you need to lead us this time," Steve is telling her since he can't move his left arm out of the sling.

"That's okay Uncle Steve and I won't touch your arm. Does it hurt much?"

"No Gracie it's fine. I'm just not allowed to move my shoulder for a few days but I will be fine soon, it's not that bad."

"Uncle Steve?"

"Yes Gracie?"

"Are you sad?"

"What? No Gracie I'm not sad, why do you say that?"

"You looked sad when you sat over there with your friends."

She must have inherited that from her dad, she's one observant kid, "no Gracie I'm not sad I was thinking about a buddy of mine who got hurt and is still in the hospital."

"Will he be okay?"

"I hope so Gracie."

"Uncle Steve do you like your party?"

"I love it Gracie, thank you so much for it. This is the best birthday gift I ever had," not thinking about it he bends down to give Grace a kiss on top of her head, but instead almost cries out from the pain that is shooting into his lower back. _Stupid move McGarrett_. He's sure that he won't be able to stay on his feet but before he can actually crumble down his dance partner changes and he feels Cath leaning into him and holding him upright. He lowers his head onto her shoulder and whispers a thank you into her ear.

"You all right? For a minute there I was worried you might pass out," she's whispering right back all the while gently swaying to the rhythm of the slow music.

"Hmmm."

"You're not falling asleep are you? I know you can sleep standing up, you with me?"

"Hmmm."

"Steve?"

"Not feeling so good, give me a minute. That really hurt," he's mumbling near her ear.

"Come on let's sit down," Catherine is trying to lead him back to the table or one of the benches.

"No hurts less standing up, I'll be okay in a minute just shouldn't have moved like that," his voice sounds a lot stronger already.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, thanks for coming to the rescue Cath. I'm pretty sure I would have face planted. Where's Grace," Steve is finally opening his eyes again and lifts his head from her shoulder.

"Danny's dancing with her," she's turning her head to take a good look at her boyfriend, who's a little too pale for her liking. "How's your head?"

"Good. I feel a lot better," no sense in telling her that his head is again throbbing mercilessly after this stupid move.

"How come I don't believe you?"

"Because you're a smart woman," Steve is grinning at her because let's face it he's busted.

"Maybe we should head home?"

"Not yet, at least let's wait for the fireworks. It's still early and I'm not even sure that I talked to everyone yet."

"Everyone knows that you're hurt, nobody is going to hold it against you. Let's talk to Danny and find out how he's holding up," Cath is leading Steve away from the dance-floor. They wouldn't have been able to keep up with the now very fast and loud music anyway.

Steve has to admit that his back is so bad at the moment that he just wants to be put out of his misery. "Where we're going," Cath is leading him away from the party to the quieter area that is facing the ocean and has some benches.

"Sit down," she is pushing him down on one of the benches with the thick cushions on it and makes him lay down flat on his back with his legs pulled up. "Is that better?"

"Hmmm," first it hurt to lay down but a few seconds later his muscles relax a little and he practically melts into the soft cushions.

Cath is sitting down by his head and gently strokes his forehead just like she did for so many weeks when he was injured from the plane crash. "Just rest a few minutes then we'll go back."

"Not sure I'll ever get up again, this feels really good. Is this turning into another present," Steve's smiling up at his girlfriend.

"You wish. Can you be serious for a minute?"

"Hmmm."

"How bad is your head?"

Steve has his standard _fine_ on his lips when he's looking up at her and can see her love and concern, that changes his mind instantly and he knows that she deserves the truth and it's clear to him that she _wants_ to share his pain with him. "It's bad, I'm dizzy and a little sick but I think that's from all that chocolate covered stuff I ate with Grace. My head really hurts and it got a lot worse in the last couple hours. But Cath I _know_ I'm fine, I'm just really tired and my whole back seized up. Please don't worry."

"Do we need to take you back to the hospital?"

"No. But you could sneak me out of here and take me home. I don't think I can go through a big good bye with everyone, I just want to go to sleep," he already struggles to keep his eyes open.

"Okay tell you what, you stay here and I'll go and find Danny. Don't move until I'm back. That okay with you," she's looking down at her friend who has is eyes closed. "Steve?"

She has to smile when she can hear that his breathing evened out and he's already asleep. Cath gets up and makes sure that he's comfortable and in no danger of rolling off the wide bench. She's making her way back to the party and goes to talk to Danny while her friend sleeps completely oblivious to the firework that just started. Now they only have to figure out a way to get the sleeping Steve home, she doubts that they will be able to wake him up again after he finally gave in to the exhaustion and pain.

H50 – H50 – H50

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><p><em><strong>Thanks again for reading. Last chapter will be up on Sunday.<strong>_


	12. Chapter 12

_**Thank you all so very much for reading, alerting and reviewing. **_

_**This is already the last chapter but I'm sure I'm not completely done with this bunch of people because I grew really fond of JoJo and Mark Hope. So I'm sure there will be another story with them.**_

_**I hope you will be satisfied with how I wrapped this story up, if you do let me know, if you don't, well even more reason to let me know why.**_

_**I'm going to start posting a new story on Wednesday. It's set in season two and I hope you will give that one a try as well.**_

_All mistakes in chapter 10 – 12 are purely mine, they were not beta-ed. If you find a really big fat spelling or grammar mistake please don't hesitate to send me a pm. I'll be grateful.  
><em>

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><p><strong>Chapter 12 <strong>

Light is filtering into the room and a soft humming can be heard from nearby. The lone occupant of the bed is still in that wonderful state of not quite awake yet. Not still in dreamland but the reality of his surroundings haven't really registered yet. Steve is completely relaxed and not willing to leave that almost trance-like state.

With complete consciousness his aches and pains will set in and even though half asleep he knows that and is adamant to prolong his waking as long as possible. But of course his body seems to have a mind of its own, it longs to move. Steve was never one to lie in bed for hours on end, even the best sex can keep him in bed for only so long.

After a couple more minutes he gives in to his body's demands and regrets it instantly. Even the careful movement of his leg sends a painful spasm through his back. He can't quite suppress the small groan that accompanies the movement. He slowly becomes aware of how he is lying in bed and that actually elicit a little laughter. He's propped half on his right side and his belly, a mountain of pillows keeping him in this position. His left arm is 'hugging' a pillow, there is no pressure on any of his various bruises and he wonders how long it took to position him like this. He's sure that he didn't participate in any way, hell he can't even remember getting home.

Steve carefully takes stock of his body; his back hurts obviously when he tried to move a minute ago but it's not hurting when he's lying still, _well that's good_. He can move his shoulder a little without pain but lifting his arm hurts. The bruises between his shoulder-blades are probably just sensitive to touch. His headache is down to a very low two and he's not dizzy or nauseas. All in all he's feeling pretty good as long as he's not moving. Which he needs to do soon, he can't ignore the call of nature for much longer. Which brings him to the question what time it is and how long he's been asleep?

According to the light streaming in it's not early morning by a long shot, more like noon or even early afternoon. The humming from earlier stopped and he can now hear voices coming from downstairs he can clearly hear Danny and Catherine.

Steve tries to roll onto his back but is stopped by some pillows, he would normally just get them out of the way but he can't get his left arm behind him. He pushes the pillows in front of him out of the way and slides across the bed to get off it on the other side, a movement his back is not happy about. He has to stop after just a couple of inches, every movement stabs a knife into his lower back that lets him gasp in pain. Now with the pillows all gone he needs to keep himself up and every single muscle in his back is screaming at him to stop moving.

But that's something he can't do because if he's not getting out of bed and into the bathroom in the next minute there will be a really wet mess in bed. So he's gritting his teeth and slides the rest over to the edge of the bed. _Great now what?_ He uses his right arm that fell asleep after he lay on it for obviously too long and is now in pins and needles and pushes himself into a sitting position.

He's very proud to keep the scream barely audible that his sitting up causes. His mother would be ashamed of him if she could hear him now, he's sure that even he's blushing. He's not one to curse but if he does, well he's in the Navy after all.

Steve's trying to take deep breaths but it's not gonna happen any time soon, so he's just panting and getting up from the bed. His vision is slightly narrowing by the incredible pain that is lancing into his back and if he didn't need to go to the bathroom that urgently he's sure that he would just crumble back to bed.

But Steve's nothing but determined to make it in time, so he shuffles around the bed and even though the pain is really bad it's getting better with every little step he's taking. Seems to take forever but finally he makes it and _just_ in time.

He leaves the lid open after being done, he's sure that Cath will forgive him this time. Steve moves over to the sink and the medicine cabinet and finds a note taped to it. 'Don't take your pills Malia gave you a shot at 14.00 h'. Well that explains why only his back is hurting and only while moving. _Funny that I didn't even wake for that._ He still has no idea what time it is.

Steve eyes the shower longingly but is not sure if he'll be able to take one, his arm is starting to hurt without the support of the sling. Right now he's holding his arm with his right one up but he'll need at least one arm for showering, not even to mention to get out of his briefs and toweling off after and getting dressed. Just thinking about all that is tiring him out again.

"Steve," Cath is calling before she tentatively opens the door. After seeing him standing a little forlorn at the sink she comes in smiling, turning the toilet seat down on the way in and greets her friend with a gentle kiss. "How you're doing?"

"Okay I guess."

"You wanna take a shower," before he can even answer she's already shedding her clothing.

"What you're doing," he's looking at her like she's lost her mind.

"What does it look like I'm doing? You can't shower alone besides I promised you another present," she's grinning at him.

"What! You can't be serious, Danny's downstairs!"

"Steve are you blushing?"

"No."

"Ah you're so sweet. So let me get this straight," she's talking while she gets him out of his underwear and into the shower stall, "you had no problem making love to me at my parent's house while my parents were sleeping in the room right next to us but think it's inappropriate to have fun in the shower while your friend is downstairs?"

"Well," he's grinning at her while she puts some shampoo into his hair, "I don't have to work with your dad."

"I see. Does your head hurt it this okay," she's gently massaging the shampoo in.

"It's fine, keep that up and I'll go right back to sleep."

"Oh we can't have that," she leaning him a little back so that the foam gets washed away by the spray of the shower. "Front or back first?"

"Hmmm?"

"Okay front it is, relax let me do all the work."

"All the work?"

"Remember this is a present for you," Cath is putting some shower gel onto a sponge and gets to work. Not that Steve really needs a cleaning but she's very thorough anyway and when she's done he's not just clean but also very relaxed.

H50 – H50 – H50

Danny Williams is looking up from the paper he was pretending to read when he hears Cath and Steve leaving their bedroom. Reading gave him a headache which he doesn't want to admit.

"Hey you two what took you so long?"

"Hi Danny, I was a little slow getting dressed," Steve's looking at his friend and hopes that he's not blushing again. The tips of his ears are burning so that wish is probably not being granted.

"I'm sure that was the only reason. How are you?"

"Good. How's your head?"

"Fine. Mark Hope called while you two were getting 'dressed'," Danny actually uses air quotes and that lets Steve blush even more, which Danny finds hilarious. "He asked if you could meet him a four pm?"

"What time is it?"

"Three, unbelievable you slept for over fifteen hours. We got a little worried."

"Is that why Malia was here," Steve's sitting down at the kitchen table and downs the milk Cath had put in front of him.

"She and Chin were out to lunch and she offered to come by. She gave you a shot of the good stuff after she talked to Mark. Would you like breakfast or lunch," Cath is prepared to make him both.

"I'm not really hungry maybe a sandwich? Do we have any cheese?"

"All right cheese sandwich it is, more milk?"

"Yeah thanks. So guys how did I get home?"

"Oh I thought you'd never ask. Well let me tell you your friends are really something."

"I know that Danny," Steve's looking at his best friend to make it really clear who he means with that in particular.

"Yeah well. Anyway, Cath came to me and told me you finally fell asleep on one of the benches. At first we couldn't wake you but then Gracie whispered something into your ear and you were instantly awake."

"I wouldn't call it awake Danny, I highly doubt that his brain ever woke up last night, I have no idea how you were able to function."

"Yeah Cath is right you were more like a zombie, following orders like a good little soldier but you didn't say one single word."

"I'm not a soldier," Steve can't but correct.

"Right. Getting you into the car was pretty easy you barely sat down and were out again. But getting you into the car and getting you into bed, well that are two different stories. Steve I'm really sorry but I think I hurt you," Danny is looking at his friend with regret.

"What do you mean, what'd you do?"

"You kinda sleepwalked into the house but at the stairs you stopped. And no matter what we did you wouldn't move even an inch up the stairs. You just stood there and stared at it like it was the Mount Everest or something."

"It hurts to climb the stairs," Steve is admitting.

"Yeah we figured as much. I only saw one way to get you upstairs, I carried you up there."

"Excuse me? YOU carried ME upstairs?"

"Yeah. Don't look so surprised, I know how to carry one in a fireman's lift. My dad taught me."

"I believe that, but Danny I'm not really a lightweight and I'm a lot taller than you are. Did you hurt your knee?"

"What? NO. But I hurt you and I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about your shoulder, we took your sling off earlier and when I put you over my shoulder your arm dropped, you screamed and passed out. Steve I'm so sorry."

"It's okay Danny, I'm sure that was not from my shoulder but from my back. Bending in any way really hurts. My shoulder is fine, doesn't hurt. Don't worry you didn't hurt me. Thank you for getting me to bed."

"Well that was another story, you were completely out. I mean I can't blame you after all those hours. You were lying on your back and even though you were asleep it was obvious that you were in pain. So first we got you out of your clothes and then we had to find a position that was comfortable for you. And I can tell you that you didn't help at all."

"Steve you like anything else on your sandwich?"

"No just the cheese. Thank you," Steve's taking a bite from his sandwich and looks at his friend, "Danny what you did for me with the party and getting all those people there, I really can't tell you how I feel about that. I'm not good with this stuff, but thank you."

"You're welcome. I have a list with their room numbers for when you want to call them. Listen when you're done here can you guys drop me off at my apartment on your way to Queens?"

"Danny are you sure you don't want to spend another night," Cath is looking at him and tries to figure out if he's fit enough to be on his own.

"I'm fine. I'll be okay. Call me when you're back from Dr. Hope?"

"Yeah sure. Danny you could stay if you like," Steve is trying to get his friend to stay another night.

"Steve I'm fine. Besides I like to sleep in my own bed."

"You call that shitty thing a bed? Now I know that you hit your head a little harder than you think."

"Very funny. At least my bed is not standing in the middle of the freaking ocean that is making this really loud noise at night or ALL the time for that matter. How anyone can sleep with that in the background is beyond me."

"Right, because it's such an annoying noise."

"Don't make fun of me Steven that is not funny."

"Sorry," but he's not. Steve's getting up from his chair, not without a grimace which of course gets noticed.

"You okay?"

"Not really, moving hurts a lot more than yesterday. I hope Mark can do something about it," Steve slowly makes his way out of the kitchen in search for some shoes he can put on.

A couple minutes later he has some old sneakers on he never bothers to untie. Danny is grabbing his small duffel bag with his stuff for his overnight stay and the trio makes their way out the door. It's a little challenge for Steve to get into the truck but he manages with some groaning. The pain in his back increased in the last minutes a lot and he's really counting on Mark to help with it.

It takes them only a few minutes to reach Danny's apartment complex and a few more to make their way to Queens Medical Center.

H50 – H50 – H50

Dr. Hope is looking at the images from Steve's MRI they took a few minutes ago and is thinking about the next course of treatment. He learned to read his patient very well over the months Steve was in his care and can tell that he's in tremendous pain even though he tries to keep it mostly in. He was a little worried about how bad his injury got over night.

"Steve I'm sorry I know it was very uncomfortable in the MRI and it worsened the pain you're in but I needed the pictures to find the best course of your treatment."

"How does it look," Steve tries to speak normally but it's not easy to keep his breathing under control.

"Well it's not as bad as I feared by the amount of pain you're in. Your previous injury of the vertebrae adds to the consequences of the nerve compression. Due to your fractures a few years back the canal for the nerves is slightly smaller, not enough to normally cause you any problems but now with the added pressure from the ruptured disk it's causing more pressure on the nerve than it would without the previous injury. That is why you're hurting so much. The tear in the disk is very small and you should be fine soon. But we need to relieve the pressure on the nerves before there is any permanent damage."

"How you're going to do that. . .argh damn, I think I need to lay down," Steve can feel that cold sweat is breaking out on his forehead. The pain just hit him full force and it's breathtaking.

"Jodie is OR one ready," Mark is talking on the phone to his assistant, "all right we'll be right there. Please page Peter that I like him to be there."

"OR? You wanna do surgery," Cath is more than alarmed when she hears him talking about an operating room.

"No, don't worry no surgery. I'm going to do an Epidural Steroid Injection. I need a fluoroscope for that and I like to do the procedure in the OR. But it's not surgery. I'm going to insert a needle into the epidural space and inject steroids combined with some numbing medication. The steroids will bring the swelling down and relieves the pressure on the nerves."

"Do I have to stay for long?"

"No Steve, after the procedure which will take about thirty minutes you'll be in recovery for about an hour but after that you can go home."

"Okay."

"Cath you can wait here if you like."

"Can't I go with Steve, I mean if it's no surgery?"

"No sorry but not into the OR, don't worry Steve will be fine."

"Okay I'll wait here," Steve's by now standing and she gives him a hug and a kiss in the hope that he'll feel better in a short while.

"See you soon."

Steve and Mark are making their way to the OR which is really not a typical Operating Room even if it's called one. It's only for non-invasive procedures like all kind of injections or setting bones of simple fractures. Peter calls it the non-bloody-OR.

"Steve hello I'm Peter White, the anesthesiologist, don't look so panicked you're not gonna get knocked out. We're just going to relax you a little, you need to lie on your belly and that will put pressure on your shoulder which will hurt, to prevent that I'm here."

Steve needs to get out of his t-shirt but can leave his pants on, they are just a little lowered when he lies down. White inserts an IV and injects something in it right away, "it will feel a little cold going through your veins don't be alarmed." Steve feels himself drifting and he doesn't care that he's lifted a little and a bolster is pushed under his lower belly. It's a little uncomfortable to lie like that and it puts more pressure on his shoulder but he can't really find the energy to care about that.

"Steve you doing okay? Is the pain bearable," Mark Hope is bending down to his patient and can see that he seems completely relaxed.

"Hmmm. . .it's fine."

"Good. I'm going to start now, you just hold still and we'll be finished real soon. Don't worry it won't hurt."

"Hmmm."

Mark smiles at Peter and is glad that he decided to sedate Steve more than strictly necessary for the procedure. As promised the whole 'operation' didn't take more than thirty five minutes and Steve is transferred to the recovery room, he actually fell asleep after Mark injected the local anesthesia.

After Steve is comfortably settled in recovery to sleep the sedation off Mark goes to find Catherine.

H50 – H50 – H50

A slow beeping is boring into his consciousness and it annoys the heck out of Steve. But he can't find the energy to open his eyes and take a look at the beeping that reminds him of a heart monitor. _Duh maybe that's because it is a heart monitor genius_, his inner voice sounds a lot like Danny again. That actually makes him grin.

"Commander McGarrett. Come on wake up, it's time for you to get out of here. Commander open your eyes."

"G' way"

"No can do, come on look at me. No don't go back to sleep you have to wake up. Kelly page Dr. Hope. Commander come on wake up," Peter White is still trying to rouse his patient who should have been awake and on his way home over half an hour ago.

"Peter what's going on," Mark Hope was already on his way to check on his patient again.

"He's still not fully awake, I'm getting worried."

"He's always very stubborn to wake up," Mark smiles reassuringly at his young colleague. "Steve? Come on my friend your girl is getting anxious in my office, don't let her wait any longer. Ah that's it, look at me. How do you feel?"

"Tired. Did everything go okay," Steve is carefully stretching out pleasantly surprised that he's not hurting that much.

"Everything is just fine. I injected some pain medication and the steroids. Hopefully they will have the swelling somewhat down before the pain meds wear off. There were no complications and if you're fully awake you can go home. Can you sit up please?"

Steve does as being told and even while sitting his back is not hurting much. "I feel pretty good, just a little tired."

"That's normal from the sedation. You might experience some tingling in your legs but don't worry that's also normal."

"Will the pain stay away?"

"Well that's hard to say. As I said the ruptured disk is not that bad, just because of your previous injury was this injection necessary. If the swelling goes down fast enough you should be relatively fine. But don't overdo it, no lifting at all, no running. I mean it Steve take it easy for a few days, go see Mikala on Monday for PT. You need that anyway for your shoulder. He'll tell you what you can do or can't do. Listen to him Steve."

"Will do. Thank you Mark."

"You're welcome. Oh before I forgot it was a great party last night, after you left some of your friends told us some amazing stories."

"Oh God. Don't believe a word they said."

"Oh I don't know, it was mostly really nice. Billy though had us in stitches."

"He wanted to ask you for a consult on his knee, did he?"

"Yeah he did, I made an appointment for him with our orthopedist, maybe Tom can help him. Billy suffers from nerve damage?"

"Yeah, sorry I can't tell you how it happened, it's classified."

"Okay, we're all done here. Your BP is good, I don't see any reason to keep you here any longer. Wait let's get your arm back into the sling. Okay like this?"

"Yeah it's fine, thank you," Steve slides down from the bed and slips into his shoes. Even standing up doesn't really hurt but he's not going to test if he's able to bend down. He moves rather gingerly and can't quite believe yet that the intense pain from earlier is gone for now.

It takes them only a few minutes to reach Mark's office where he's rather anxiously awaited by Cath.

"Steve! Are you all right," she's gently hugging him and looks him up and down.

"I'm fine. Sorry slept a little longer," he's sheepishly smiling at her.

"What else is new? Are you okay?"

"I am. Pain's almost gone. I feel pretty good."

"Mark?"

"He is Catherine. Everything went fine. I like to see you on Wednesday Steve, I talked to Dr. Summers, she's okay with transferring your care over to Queens. And don't forget your PT on Monday three pm."

"Okay I'll call you Monday and make an appointment for Wednesday. Thank you Mark."

"Yeah yeah now go and keep out of trouble. Please?"

"I'll try."

"Do better than that," Mark is calling after his two friends while closing the door after leading them out of his office.

Steve's leaning against the wall in the elevator and looks at his girlfriend, "I'm sure your idea of a Saturday doesn't involve hospital visits and babysitting your hurt boyfriend. Cath I'm sorry for another fucked up weekend."

Catherine is closing the gap between them, "listen to me Steve. This is not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. You just did your job. I know what that entitles and that you can get hurt or god forbid even get killed. I've known that all those years we're together now. I hate to see you hurting but I don't want you to change one bit. I love you just like you are, job hazards, hospital visits and all. I love you because you always fight for what you feel is right, I love you because you always give everything, on the job and in love. Don't ever change anything for me."

"Wow."

Catherine actually laughs and blushes furiously, that flaming declaration of love was not her intention.

"Well. Do you want to go and have dinner with me? Just the two of us," Steve's looking down at his 'girl' as Mark called her. _Don't let her hear that._

"Do you?"

"I'd rather just go home but I am hungry and a nice little restaurant doesn't sound too bad."

"How about take out?"

"Thank you, take out it is," glad not to have to sit in a restaurant he actually doesn't care what they're going to get tonight.

"You know after we're done with dinner you have a lot of presents to unwrap."

"Presents?"

"Yeah. You thought the party was your only present? There are at least two dozen neatly wrapped packages stacked in the guest room. I'm pretty sure we will have a lot of fun later."

"I hope they're not all toasters."

"That's for a wedding, not a guy's birthday. It's probably a good thing that you didn't get them at the party," she's grinning fully knowing what in some of the packages is.

"Then what are we waiting for? Maybe the weekend isn't a total loss after all."

One thing's for sure with all the unwrapping and testing all the presents it's going to be a long night.

H50 – H50 – H50


End file.
